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Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 



By JAMES M. GRAY, D. D. 



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Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

in the light of the 

Old and New Testaments 



By 
JAMES M. GRAY, D.D. 

Dean of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago 

Author of "Synthetic Bible Studies" "The Christian Worker's 

Commentary" "A Text Book on Prophecy" "The 

Antidote to Christian Science" "Progress 

in the Life to Come" "Bible 

Problems Explained" etc. 




New York Chicago 

Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1920, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 



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MAR -3 ri2! 



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CONTENTS 

I. The New Attack of Spiritual- 
ism and How to Meet It . 9 
II. The Modern History of Spirit- 
ism ...... 16 

III. Satan, Or Spiritism at Its 

Source .... 27 

IV. Angels and Demons, Or Spirit- 

ism's Personnel 39 

V. Spiritism Before the Flood ., 46 
VI. "Sons of God" Marrying the 

"Daughters of Men" . 57 

VII. Abominations of the Canaan- 

ites 66 

VIII. Spiritism in Israel and Judah . 80 
IX. Early Christianity and the 

Black Art .... 90 
X. Teaching of the Apostolic 

Epistles 102 

XI. Teaching of the General 

Epistles 119 

XII. Teaching of the Apocalypse . 135 



THE NEW ATTACK OF SPIRITUALISM 
AND HOW TO MEET IT 



OF writing books on Spiritualism in these 
days there is no end. But with a single ex- 
ception, and that rather inadequate in its 
treatment of the subject, we have found none to 
put into the hands of a Christian desirous of 
learning how to meet and deal with this error 
from an all round Biblical point of view. 

Some were too technical, some too bulky and 
expensive and some so mixed with other error as 
to be impossible to recommend. 

Not a few were written by those who were well- 
informed on the scientific phases of Spiritualism, 
the findings of the Society of Psychical Research 
or the doings of mediums and seances, but whose 
authors appeared either ignorant of or indifferent 
to the Bible, which to the Christian, of course, 
holds the first place and is of final authority. 

Some of the writers were of the novelist type 
like Sir A. Conan Doyle, Basil King or Booth 
Tarkington, and antagonistic to Christianity con- 
sidering it a confirmed failure. These referred 
to the Bible to ridicule its teachings or to wrest 

9 



10 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

their meaning into conformity with their own 
views, being convinced, as one of them said, that 
Spiritualism is "not only a new religion but the 
coming religion." 

We intended to briefly analyze some of % these 
books for the sake of the warning they contain, 
but this has been so well done by the Sunday 
School Times in the case of Basil King's "The 
Abolishing of Death" that we take the liberty to 
quote. The reviewer confesses the masterful 
character of the work and the fact that it intelli- 
gently recognizes the fundamentals of the Chris- 
tian faith, but, as he adds, it just as intelligently 
rejects them: 

"The unique inspiration of the Bible' is rejected. 

The finality of the Bible's message, as a complete revela- 
tion from God for all men for this life, is rejected. 

The unique deity of Christ is rejected. 

The necessity for the blood atonement of Christ is rejected. 

The existence and reality of sin are rejected. 

God's word that some men will be lost and some will be 
saved is rejected. 

The reality of death is rejected. 

The need of faith in Christ as Saviour as a condition of 
eternal life is rejected. 

God's word as to hell, or the second death, is rejected. 

The lines between sin and holiness are obliterated. 

And the divinity of all men, which the Bible denies, is 
declared." 

II 

It is astonishing and saddening too, to read 
some of the arguments advanced in books and 



New Attack of Spiritualism 11 

other writings on this subject, by Christian min- 
isters, in their efforts to dissuade their flocks from 
following these false shepherds. 

One warns them to beware of the medieval sys- 
tem of demonology, which on further investiga- 
tion turns out to mean really Bible demonology. 
He would have his ministerial brethren also deny 
absolutely that a medium can receive communi- 
cations from another world, because, he adds, 
"this would make it inconsistent to suggest that 
their communications were from evil spirits!" It 
seems almost impossible that such a man ever 
could have consulted his Bible except as he goes 
to a book of familiar quotations to select a text. 

That mediums can receive communications from 
another world there is no doubt, nor f is there any 
doubt that their communications are from evil 
spirits, for the Bible confirms both propositions. 
That is not to say, however, that all mediums re- 
ceive such communications, nor that any medium 
receives them in every case, there are frauds per- 
petrated as every one knows; but in principle it 
is as. foolish to deny this as it is for an ostrich to 
hide its head in the sand and suppose that itican 
not be seen. 

Another expresses the opinion that it is per- 
fectly natural to seek communion with those we 
have loved and who have passed beyond, and that 
there is no reason why we should not talk with 
them if they are near to us; but advises against 



12 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

it because "the means of communication and the 
machinery of contact is as yet so imperfect !" In 
other words, as soon as scientists have perfected 
the apparatus, communications between the living 
and the dead, may be popularized, not merely 
without harm to any but with positive benefit to 
all. It is like the aeroplane which will soon lose 
its interest for sportsmen and scientists and be- 
come a common carrier. 

Strange to say, this last opinion is from a writer 
of the Evangelical type apparently, for he goes on 
to say that while such intercourse with the dead 
would be a great comfort and a renewed assurance 
of the persistence of life after death, yet after 
all that is not religion. "Religion," he truly wit- 
nesses, "is the consciousness of God, the sense of 
redemption from sin through Jesus Christ, joy 
and peace in the Holy Ghost, service of the world, 
and love and tenderness for all mankind." One 
wonders that a man so intelligent in the Gospel 
could possibly be led into folly of this kind and 
into such gross contradiction of the Bible. It may 
be natural enough for us to seek communion with 
our departed, but the reason we should refrain 
from it is because God has forbidden it. What 
further do we need? 

Perhaps as confusing as anything we have seen 
was a review of four new books, in an English 
evangelical periodical, in which the claims and 
teachings of Spiritualism were weighed in the bal- 



New Attack of Spiritualism 13 

ance and found wanting, and as to which the re- 
viewer said he heartily commended them all. Two 
of these books were thoroughly sound and Biblical 
in their contention, but one of the others was that 
referred to above as containing the theory that 
mediums could have no intercourse with demons, 
and the fourth advocated, as an offset to Spiritual- 
ism, that Christians give more diligence in inter- 
cession of the saints and prayers for the dead! 

The reviewer would explain his inconsistenq^ 
doubtless, by the circumstance that all agreed in 
teaching that between Spiritualism and Christian- 
ity there was no affinity. Nevertheless, if such 
lack of discrimination were everywhere, we could 
well appreciate the remark of another English- 
man that "the word 'Christianity' has undergone 
such enlargement that I scarcely know what it 
means when I see it." 

Ill 

Speaking further of the inability and lack of 
Biblical knowledge in dealing with this subject on 
the part of some who ought to be 'teachers in 
Israel', it recalls the situation w^hen Christian Sci- 
ence first raised its head as an avowed rival of 
the Church and when, as a result, the ministry was 
thrown into a panic. 

And by the way, the editor of Christian "Work 
on his return from England not long since, re- 
ported that now one seldom heard Christian Sci- 



14 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

ence referred to there. The war, he said, had 
dissipated all illusions as to the non-existence of 
evil, and to quote his words, "men who have been 
buried under a shower of legs, arms, heads and 
mutilated trunks of human bodies falling all about 
them do not make easy converts to that faith. But 
everybody is talking about Spiritualism," he went 
on to say, "and spiritualistic meetings are being 
held all over the country, and there are seances on 
every street. So alarmed have the churches be- 
come that the preachers are delivering sermons 
regarding it, and the religious press is printing 
weekly editorials." 

It was the same in this country and especially 
in and around Boston, where the present writer 
lived in the early eighties, which saw the rise and 
development of Mrs. Eddy's delusion. Of course 
it was the proper thing to deliver sermons and 
write editorials against it if only they aimed 
straight and used the right ammunition; but pas- 
tors and church committees, not a few, were ready 
to capitulate or compromise after the first cam- 
paign, and to admit the validity of Christian Sci- 
ence as a church and grant letters dimissory to it. 

We remember that Dr. A. J. Gordon was pro- 
claimed a saviour when, in an issue of the Congre- 
gationalist of April 1885, he contributed an article, 
later circulated by the thousands in leaflet form, 
entitled, "Christian Science Tested by Scripture." 
Everybody thought Scripture should be recognized 



New Attack of Spiritualism 15 

in the premises and that its dictum would settle the 
matter at least for believers, but until Dr. Gordon 
rose up to say the word, no one else seemed able 
or willing to go about it. 

History is repeating itself, but while many like 
the Hebrews with Saul at Gilgal, are going "over 
Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead," not a few 
are remaining true and with trumpets of no un- 
certain sound proclaiming a "Thus saith the 
Lord." 

We are happy to join their number, and at the 
request of our publisher, to do what we can in the 
chapters of this book to aid Christians in under- 
standing and meeting the error of Spiritualism from 
the Bible point of view. 



II 

THE MODERN HISTORY OF SPIRITISM 



SPIRITUALISM at its source is older than 
man, but we have no intention of tracing it 
to its source just now, that will come later. 
At the moment we wish to deal with it only for 
the period of time during which it has been known 
by its present name. 

And yet its present name is not the best because 
it has too wide an application. At one time "Spir- 
itualism" was used to designate the doctrines and 
religious life of mystics like Jacob Bohme and 
Madame Guyon who tried to live consecrated lives 
subject to the Holy Spirit, and in obedience to the 
Word of God. 

As a French investigator put it, "spiritualism is 
the opposite of materialism. Whoever believes he 
has something within him distinguished from mat- 
ter is a spiritualist," in which sense, of course, all 
true Christians are spiritualists, though it does not 
follow that they practice communications with 
spirits of an invisible world. 

16 



Modern History of Spiritism 17 

Therefore to designate this latter belief the word 
"Spiritism" has come to be used, which we shall 
employ hereafter, meaning by it the idea of some 
people, that the living can and do communicate 
with the spirits of the departed, and also including 
the various practices resorted to in that intercourse. 



II 



Spiritism, which is also necromancy or the evoca- 
tion of the dead, was a feature of that Gnosticism 
which assailed the Christian Church in the Apos- 
tolic era, and against which Paul, by the Holy 
Spirit, inveighs particularly in his epistle to the 
Colossians. And this, in turn, indicates that it was 
not a new thing even then, but that it formed a 
part of the earlier pagan religions. Allusions to 
it have been found in Homer, Strabo ascribes its 
practice to the early Persians, Theodoret finds it 
in Chaldea and Babylonia, and readers of the Old 
Testament recall Moses speaking of it as among 
the abominations of the Canaanites (Deut. 
XVIII) of which we speak in a later chapter. 

The Delphic oracles (more than 600 B. C.) 
are claimed by Spiritists and we believe with good 
reason, and the same may be said of the lives of 
seers and clairvoyants and the facts of witchcraft 
in all ages. "Never would that oracle at Delphi 
have been so celebrated nor stored with so many 
gifts from all kinds of peoples and kings, unless 



18 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

every age had experienced the truth of its utter- 
ances" (Cicero, De Divinatione 19). 

To come to the Christian period, the early 
Church fathers assume as unquestionable the 
agency of evil spirits in the pagan oracles and rites, 
showing themselves by divinations, cures and 
dreams. The records of the Roman Catholic 
Church also speak of phenomena which bear a close 
resemblance to present-day Spiritism. During the 
Reformation Luther published a treatise against 
"The Celestial Prophets'', so-called, of Germany, 
whom he charged with exercising the imitative 
powers of Satan. 

There were occurrences in the Wesley family 
ascribed to Spiritism (1716), and it is commonly 
believed to explain much in Swedenborg's alleged 
full and open communication with the spirit world. 

In America, David Brainerd, in his work among 
the Indians, declared that one of his greatest diffi- 
culties was the conviction they held that their di- 
viners had supernatural power, a conviction He 
himself shared. 

In 1843, 'he Shakers at New Lebanon, N. Y., 
became the subjects of strange experiences, and in- 
fluences purporting to be spirits who had lived in 
the world in different ages, took possession of their 
bodies and spoke through their vocal organs. 

Ill 

What is known as the "spirit-rapping" phe- 



Modern History of Spiritism 19 

nomenon began in March, 1848, in the family of 
John D. Fox in Hydeville, N. Y., whose daughters 
a few years afterwards began to give public per- 
formances. 

The alleged spiritist manifestations of these 
young women became the subject of extensive 
newspaper discussion with the result that "med- 
iums", through whom they w^ere said to occur, 
were multiplied in different parts of the country 
by hundreds and thousands. 

The seances of the Fox girls before the Civil 
War were attended by some of the most prominent 
men of the country, and when they visited Europe 
they had the nobility and royalty for their audi- 
tors. Societies were organized, and disciples and 
imitators came forward in great numbers. 



IV 



This brings us to the scientific epoch in Spirit- 
ism, when such men as Sir William Crookes, the 
English chemist and physicist, who died recently, 
became actively interested in it. 

In the London Quarterly Journal of January, 
1874, he classified the phenomena under some ten 
or a dozen heads, and also conducted exhibitions in 
his own house, mostly in the light, when it is said 
that the existence of an unexplained force was 
accurately tested by means of an ingenious ap- 
paratus. 



20 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

In other words, with Sir William Crookes' in- 
vestigations it began to be felt that the phenomena 
of Spiritism were not all fraud, and while the 
scientists were unable to explain the source of 
some of them, their ignorance in the premises 
went so far to confirm the teaching of the Bible 
that the source was to be found in the super- 
human realm. 

Sir William testified that "it was a common 
thing for seven or eight of us in the laboratory to 
see Miss Cook (the medium) and 'Katie' (the 
spirit) at the same time under the full blaze of the 
electric light." On one occasion, the electrician 
showed to the satisfaction of the spectators that 
the medium was inside the cabinet while the sup- 
posed spirit form was visible and moving outside. 

Quoting Nelson's Enq^clopasdia, it was the or- 
ganization of the Society of Psychical Research 
(England, 1882; America, 1888) that revived 
recent interest in the doctrine. Its work has 
tended to put limits to the claims which have been 
made for communication with the discarnate, 
though it has at the same time strengthened the 
belief in it by giving it better scientific credentials. 
Reports on the remarkable case of Mrs. Piper 
were published in five different volumes of the 
Proceedings of this Society, and it is said that they 
offer the best mass of scientific evidence extant in 
support of possible spirit communication. 

It was the evidence derived from this woman's 



Modern History of Spiritism 21 

case when she crossed the Atlantic in 1889, that 
finally convinced Sir Oliver Lodge that deceased 
relatives spoke or sent messages through her or- 
ganism informing him both of known and un- 
known facts subsequently verified. In other 
words, to quote him exactly, it convinced him u that 
the brain and organism of a living person might 
be utilized by deceased personalities whose own 
bodies had ceased to work." 

To avoid an erroneous supposition in the light 
of some things which we have already said, let it 
be stated clearly at this point that the Bible is 
against the conclusion of Sir Oliver. It reveals, as 
we shall subsequently discover, the possibility of 
materializations, but not the actual talking with 
the dead. By materialization in this case we mean 
the assumption of a material and bodily form by 
evil angels or demons who wickedly personate the 
dead and deceive the living, but nothing more. 
The proof of this will follow, but to avoid any pos- 
sible misunderstanding at the outset, the fact it- 
self is here stated. 



The current revival of Spiritism, or "the Spirit- 
ist intrusion", as Life called it, dates from the 
recent war, and was predicted by close and earnest 
students of the Bible. It is "due to the bereave- 
ments of the war and to the longing of broken 



22 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

hearts to find out something concerning the des- 
tiny of those who have been taken from them." 
Instead of turning "to the law and to the testi- 
mony" as the inspired prophet exhorts, they have 
taken up with spirits "that peep and that mutter" 
(Isaiah VIIL 19, 20). 

"There is hardly a home in England," we are 
told, "from which some boy has not gone forever 
during these last two years. Can they be reached? 
Can one have communion with them? Can they 
break through the wall between their world and 
ours? 

"Then, one by one, such men as Sir Oliver 
Lodge and Sir A. Conan Doyle published books 
saying, 'We have had communications from our 
boys, and have spoken with them and with their 
comrades who perished on the field of battle.' 

"Thousands of parents responded, 'If they, why 
not we?' And the result has been an almost over- 
whelming rush to mediums, and long lists of se- 
ances are now advertised in the papers." (Edi- 
torial in The Christian Work). 

In our opinion the campaign of the powers of 
darkness gained its greatest headway up until that 
date during the fighting from Mons to Ypres. 

Readers will recall a fantastic story of that 
period published at first in a London evening 
paper, and entitled, "The Bowman", which pur- 
ported to tell how St. George and the old Agin- 
court bowmen appeared during the retreat from 



Modern History of Spiritism 23 

Mons and fought with the British against the foe. 
The author frankly declared it was pure fiction, 
but so heated was the British imagination at the 
time and so psychologically ready for the recep- 
tion of the occult, that he was not believed by 
many who seriously entertained the opinion that 
angels appeared to the soldiers. 

Nor were these in all cases the intellectually 
weak, but in some instances intelligent and edu- 
cated men and women, including a Christian scholar 
whom we personally know, and who is honored 
throughout Christendom. Indeed an eminent 
clergyman of London is reported to have said that 
such a case of spiritual intervention was "emi- 
nently creditable. Joan of Arc saved her country 
owing to the vision of an angel, and why should 
not the phenomenon be repeated in this case?" 

Immediately people began to hold intercourse 
with their beloved dead, as was supposed. The 
Christian scholar, in a private letter to the writer, 
said: "My wife saw her boy in his spiritual body 
permitted to come once to comfort her, We know. 
It is the same with many. This war is given for 
the convincing of many that the future life is a real 
thing, and that God Himself speaks to man. This 
is the one consolation that remains out of this 
hideous and horrible time of trial. My wife was 
permitted to talk to her boy. He was even more 
radiant than in life, but otherwise the same. He 
told her of his death and the manner of it. We 



24 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

learned after a month that this was true. Some 
people call it a dream. I know it was a vision 
granted to soothe her sorrow and her longing. 
This has nothing to do with magic. The spiritual 
eye saw the spiritual body." 



VI 



It would not be the part of wisdom for the 
writer to delay warning the unwary until our con- 
sideration of this subject approached its conclu- 
sion. Hence a pause is made here to say that the 
experiences above recorded are very different from 
those of Bible saints. 

Let a brief reference be made again to Isaiah's 
words (VIII. 19-22). He sees Israel in the lat- 
ter days in great distress, doubtless far beyond 
anything known in the late war. They are u hardly 
bestead and hungry", "behold trouble, darkness, 
dimness of anguish". They are seeking "unto 
them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards 
that peep and that mutter", and he rebukes them, 
saying "Should not a people seek unto their God? 
On behalf of the living should they seek unto the 
dead? To the law and to the testimony; if they 
speak not according to this word, it is because there 
is no light in them." 

In other words, are not the Word and the Spirit 
of God the source, and the sufficient source, of the 
Christian's comfort in this age? Does he need 



Modern History of Spiritism 25 

such visions to convince him of the future life 
and that God speaks to men? The rich man in 
our Lord's story in Luke 16 thought well of that 
kind of evidence, but we remember how fruitless 
"father Abraham" thought it would be. If such 
things are the only, or the strongest, consolation 
remaining for God's people in such a time of trial, 
what of the millions of them to whom they do not 
come? 

Let the Christian ever keep in mind that there 
are such beings as evil spirits, of whom we shall 
learn considerable by and by, and let him con- 
sider further that fundamentally only these are 
in evidence in this modern outbreak of Spirit- 
ism. 

In proof of this it may be mentioned that in all 
the accounts of the angels at Mons which came 
to our attention, not once was Jesus Christ so much 
as named. St. George was named, and Joan of 
Arc, and Socrates, and Swedenborg, and the Virgin 
Mary. God was referred to a few times, but our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ never. Even the 
private correspondence mentioned above, and from 
a Christian source, alludes to Him but once, and 
then indirectly, and by His human and family 
name, Jesus. 

"What place do you give to Christ in Spiritual- 
ism?" was asked of a votary by a London editor. 
"Is He to you the Son of God, and do you wor- 
ship Him as such?" 



26 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

"Oh, no," came the reply. "He is to us simply 
the Master Medium." 

In the words of the editor, (The Life of Faith, 
London), "that confession is fatal. No creed, no 
cult, no religion that dethrones our Lord and 
places Him on a level with men and mediums has 
any right to claim a Christian connection. And 
men and women who profess to be followers of 
Christ are putting Him to open shame when they 
join hands with those who would, if they could, 
rob Him of His deity and His matchless glory." 



Ill 

SATAN— OR SPIRITISM AT ITS SOURCE 



SATAN is the source of Spiritism, and since 
the Bible is the only place in which we can 
learn anything reliable about him, we now 
open its pages for that purpose. 

As we are writing for Christians chiefly, it is 
assumed that the Bible is the revelation of God 
and not only credible as to its statements of fact 
but an inspired record of them. The evidence of 
this is convincing and never more so than in the 
twentieth century, as could easily be demonstrated 
if circumstances permitted or required it. 

Even the casual reader of the Bible will recall 
the outstanding occasions when Satan appears on 
its scenes. First, as the "serpent" in the Garden 
of Eden tempting and overcoming our first parents, 
for twice in the New Testament the serpent is 
identified with the devil and Satan (Rev. XII. 9; 
XX. 2). Next, in the history of Job (chapters 
I and II) ; then, later, in vision, in the Old Testa- 

27 



28 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

merit as the accuser of Israel after their return 
from Babylon (Zech. III). 

In the New Testament he first comes before us 
as Christ's tempter in the wilderness (Matthew IV 
and its parallels) ; he entered into Judas to be- 
tray Christ (John XIII. 27), arid into Ananias 
and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Ghost (Acts V. 3). 
He hindered Paul in his missionary work (I Thess. 
II. 18) ; he is said to walk about as a roaring lion 
seeking whom he may devour (I Pet. V. 8), and 
in the end of this age he will give his power to 
the Lawless one to deceive, if possible, the very 
elect (Matthew XXIV. 24; 2 Thess. II. 8-10); 
Rev. XIII. 1, 2). 

Satan has many names in Scripture, each of 
which reveals some feature of his character. 
"Satan" itself means the Adversary; "devil," 
(slanderer) ; "Apollyon," (destroyer) ; "Beelze- 
bub," (prince of the demons) ; "Belial," (low, ab- 
ject) ; "the wicked one"; "the god of this world"; 
"the prince of darkness"; "the dragon," "tor- 
mentor," "accuser," "deceiver," "liar," "murder- 
er," "he that hath the power of death." This 
sufficiently reveals the kind of being he is and fur- 
nishes a reason why we should beware of him. 



11 



As to the origin of Satan, those who class the 
cherubim as angels, think he was one of them, and 



Spiritism at its Source 29 

anointed probably for a position of great author- 
ity. This authority may have been over primitive 
creation, i.e., heaven and earth as at first created, 
and before the earth became without form and 
void (Gen. I. i). 

He fell through pride (Isa. XIV. 12-14). 
Some think he was then cast out of heaven accord- 
ing to Christ's words in Luke X. 18, on which sup- 
position, he then made the earth and the air the 
scene of his activity (Eph. II. 2; I. Pet. V. 8). 

A scriptural basis for this conjecture is in Ezek- 
iel XXVIII. 11-15. The chapter is a rebuke of 
the King of Tyre, but at the verses named the lan- 
guage goes beyond him to Satan described in his 
unfallen state. 

If this interpretation is correct, the chapter 
teaches much about Satan, which is summed up by 
Dr. R. A. Torrey in "What the Bible Teaches," 
thus: 

1. He was the sum of created perfection, v. 12. 

2. He was in the garden of God, v. 13. This 
does not mean the Eden of Adam, but an earlier 
one. The Eden of Adam was remarkable for 
its vegetable glory, but this for its mineral glory. 
Cf. Revelation XXL 10-21. 

3. He was the anointed cherub that covereth, 
v. 14. First, he was a "cherub", the highest rank 
in the angelic world. Second, "the anointed" 
cherub, i.e., one who was set apart for a formal 
work. Third, the anointed cherub that "covereth" 



30 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

The meaning of this word is not given, though it 
suggests Exodus XXXVII. 9. 

4. He was upon the holy mountain of God, 
v. 14, which may mean the place where God mani- 
fested His personal glory. 

5. He walked up and down in the midst of the 
stones of fire, v. 14. This suggests Exodus XXIV. 

10, 17, R.V., and Ezekiel I. 15, 22, 25, 26, R.V. 
In the former the seventy elders saw the Lord of 
Israel, and "there was under His feet as it were a 
paved walk of sapphire stone", and "the appear- 
ance of the glory of the Lord was like devouring 
fire on the top of the mount." This may afford an 
idea of what the "stones of fire" were, and indi- 
cate how near Satan may have been to God. 

6. His heart was lifted up because of his 
beauty, v. 17. Cf. I Timothy III. 6 R.V. 

7. He was cast out of the mountain of God, 
and destroyed from the midst of the stones of 
fire, v. 16. 

8. He shall be cast to the earth and be made 
a spectacle, vv. 17, 18. Cf. with 2 Thessalonians 

11. 8; Revelation XII. 9, 10, and XIX. 20. 

Ill 

To go a little further into the nature and char- 
acter of Satan : 

(1) He is a person, i.e., he possesses self-con- 
sciousness and free-will, because the facts stated in 



Spiritism at its Source 31 

the preceding paragraphs could not be predicted 
of an influence or a principle of evil. 

(2) He has great dignity , since he is styled 
the "prince," "the god of this world," and "prince 
of the power of the air," and it is said that Michael 
the Archangel "durst not bring against him a rail- 
ing judgment," (John XII. 3152 Cor. IV. 4; Eph. 
II. 2; Jude 8, 9, R.V.). 

(3) He has great power, since he is able to 
control the forces of nature, human property and 
life, demons, the world-rulers of darkness, and 
the whole world of men out of Christ, (Job I. 
10-12; Luke XL 14-18; I John V. 19 R.V.; Acts 
XXVI. 18; Eph. VI. 11, 12). 

(4) He has great cunning and deceit, since he 
transforms himself into an angel of light, uses 
wiles and devices, signs and lying wonders (Mat- 
thew XXIV. 24; 2 Cor. II. 11; 2 Cor. XL 14; 
Eph. VI. 11, 12 R.V.; 2 Thess. II. 9, R.V.). 

(5) He has great malignity, being called the 
evil one, a liar, a murderer, and a sinner from 
the beginning (Matthew V. 37; Luke VIII. 12; 
John VIII. 44; 2 Cor. IV. 4; I John III. 8). 

(6) He has great fear, for if we resist him 
he will flee from us (James IV. 7). 



IV 



As to Satan's present location and his work, he 
is referred to as being in the heavenly places, and 



32 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

also as going to and fro in the earth. As in the 
age to come, Christ and His Church, though abid- 
ing in the heavenly places, will rule an earthly 
people, so now Satan and his hosts abiding in the 
heavenly places are ruling an earthly people. (Job 
I. 6, 7; Eph. VI. 11, 12; I Peter V. 8; Rev. XII. 

9). 

As to his work : 

( 1 ) He is the author of sin and tempts to sin 
(Gen. III. 1-6; I Chron. XXI. i ; Matt. IV) ; 

(2) He produces sickness and has the power 
of death (Luke XIII. 16; Acts X. 38; Heb. II. 

14); 

(3) He lays snares for men (I Tim. III. 7) ; 

(4) He takes the "Word of God out of their 
hearts (Matt. XIII. 19) ; 

(5) He puts wicked purposes into their hearts 
(Eph. IV. 27); 

(6) He blinds their minds (2 Cor. IV. 4, 
R.V.); 

(7) He harasses and accuses them (2 Cor. 
XII. 7; Rev. XIII. 9, 10); 

(8) He enters into them (John XIII. 27) ; 

(9) He does all this and more by means of 
the angelic messengers who carry on his work (2 
Cor. XL 14, 15; Rev. III. 9). 

Happily however, there are certain limitations 
of his work and power. For example, being a 
finite and created being he can be only in one place 
at one time, though what is done by his agents 






Spiritism at its Source 33 

being attributed to him, he is practically ubiqui- 
tous. 

In the second place, it is reassuring to know 
that his influence over the bodies of men is en- 
tirely subject to God's control (Job II. 7; Luke 
XIII. 16; Acts X. 38), and that his influence over 
the souls of men is simply moral. That is to say, 
he may offer suggestions and deceive or persuade 
men, but he is absolutely unable to change their 
hearts or coerce their wills. "Every man is tempt- 
ed, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and 
enticed" (Jas. I. 14). 

Our responsibility in regard to Satan therefore, 
is threefold: We are to watch against him (I 
Peter V. 8) ; to give no place to him (Eph. IV. 
27) ; and to resist him (Jas. IV. 7). 

We watch against him as the context of the 
passage shows, by humbling ourselves under the 
mighty hand of God and casting all our anxiety 
upon Him. We give no place to him by restrain- 
ing wrath and eschewing falsehood; and we resist 
him by the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word 
of God. 



It remains to say that there are two ways in 
which Satan is particularly manifesting himself 
today in the lives and affairs of men. The Sunday 
School Times recently called it "the devil's world- 



34 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

wide revival." One is in the form of demonism 
and the other spiritism, though the two are closely 
allied. 

i. By demonism is meant just now the Wor- 
ship of demons and human possession by demons. 
We learn from the Bible that the apostate Israel- 
ites sacrificed to demons, and that the gods of the 
heathen were demons. Paul charged the Athen- 
ians with being too milch addicted to demon wor- 
ship, which is the real meaning of the word "super- 
stitious" in Acts XVII. 22. He also adds that 
the things which the Gentiles sacrificed they sacri- 
ficed to demons and not to God. 

It is true that the Bible teaching about demonia- 
cal possession has been denied by some, who ex- 
plain the symptoms referred to as those of physical 
disease simply. They admit that Christ taught 
the contrary, but meet this by saying that He con- 
formed His language to the vulgar notions of the 
times, the same argument as they use with refer- 
ence to other subjects of His teaching, the Mosaic 
authorship of the Pentateuch, for example. 

Nevertheless, the New Testament puts it beyond 
question that demoniacs were possessed by demons. 
For example: 

(1) They evinced superhuman strength and 
Knowledge, even recognizing Jesus as the Son of 
God, as well as His power and purpose to punish 
the ungodly. 

(2) In addressing Him, the demons distin- 



Spiritism at its Source 35 

guished themselves from the persons they tor- 
mented, saying in the case of the Gadarenes, 
"What have we to do with Thee, Jesus?" and "If 
Thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the 
deep" (Matt. VIII. 28-31). 

(3) In delivering those who were possessed, 
Christ spoke not to the persons themselves, but to 
their tormentors, saying to the latter, "Go" or 
"Come out". In other instances also the demons 
are expressly distinguished from the diseases they 
created, as when we read of Christ that they 
brought unto Him all sick people, and those that 
were possessed with demons, and those that were 
lunatic. 

Nor is demoniacal possession limited to the time 
of Christ. It existed before Christ came, because 
the Jews of His day professed to cast out demons, 
showing that the phenomenon was not new to them ; 
and it existed after He departed, because He com- 
missioned His disciples to cast out demons, a com- 
mission upon which they acted. 

Early church fathers testify to the casting out 
of demons in their day, and the Reformation 
fathers do the same. It exists now as seen in our 
Missionary annals, especially that recent volume, 
Demons and Demon Possession, by Dr. Nevius, 
and in current discussions on Theosophy and Spirit- 
ism and Speaking with Tongues. 

Finally, demoniacal possession will constitute 
one of the awful features of the tribulation at the 



36 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

end of this age, as is clearly indicated, in the book 
of Revelation. The battle of Armageddon for 
example, is to be brought about by the spirits of 
demons working miracles (Rev. XVI. 14). 



VI 



2. The other way in which Satan is manifest- 
ing himself and is likely to do so until the end of 
the age is in Spiritism. The dictionary defines it 
as the belief that the spirits of the dead communi- 
cate with and manifest their presence to men. It 
is supposed that they usually do this through the 
agency of a human person called a medium. As 
was stated before, we deny that the spirits of the 
dead do this, but we affirm that there is a counter- 
feit materialization of the dead by demons. That 
is, demons assume a material and bodily form to 
deceive the living into the belief that they are com- 
municating with the dead. 

In other words, we believe that certain facts of 
Spiritism are true. There are some things which 
pass for facts that are not facts, for Satan has no 
desire that his work should become too apparent, 
but nevertheless there is a basis of fact underlying 
the pretensions of Spiritism, which we must not 
only admit but insist upon as a testimony against it. 

The scientists bear witness that while there is 
a large element of fraud in Spiritism, there is still 
a residuum of facts demanding explanation. They 



Spiritism at its Source 37 

would refer some of these to the powers of the 
human mind, the "subliminal consciousness, " just 
below the level of the normal waking life, but there 
are still other manifestations for which that ex- 
planation will not suffice, and to which such men 
testify as Alfred Russell Wallace, Sir Wm. 
Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge and the late Professor 
William James of Harvard. It is Sir Wm. 
Crookes who, in his Evidences of Spiritualism, said 
"that certain phenomena occur under circumstances 
in which they can not be explained by any physical 
law at present known, is a fact of which I am as 
certain as I am of the most elementary fact in 
chemistry." 

Coming to the Bible however, and it is upon 
that we stand, we find God legislating for Israel, 
and saying, "A man also, or woman, that hath a 
familiar spirit, or one that is a wizard, shall surely 
be put to death (Lev. XX. 27)." This means 
those who are instructed in the art of intercourse 
with demons, and the warning it expresses is re- 
peated in one form or another in the Old Testa- 
ment very frequently as we shall see. 

Moreover, take such illustrations as the story of 
Saul and the Witch of Endor, or that of Paul and 
the Philippian damsel. The latter was what is now 
called a medium, and according to the Greek was 
possessed by the spirit of Pytho, the same that 
guided the Delphic oracle. Her testimony to Paul 
and his companions proves that the messengers of 



38 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

Satan sometimes speak truth, when it is to their 
advantage to do so, but more of this later. 

Finally, the Bible asserts the continuance of 
such Satanic agency throughout this dispensation 
(Gal. V. 20, 21 ; Rev. IX. 21 ; Rev. XVI. 14; Rev. 
XVIII. 23; and Rev. XXI. 8). Whether it will 
continue in the form and under the name of Spirit- 
ism or not, it is impossible to say, but neverthe- 
less as the end of the age approaches Satan's emis- 
saries will act more and more without disguise, 
and "show great signs and wonders insomuch that 
if it were possible they shall deceive the very elect" 
(Matt. XXIV. 24). 



IV 



ANGELS AND DEMONS, OR SPIRITISM'S 
PERSONNEL 



ONE can not be very intelligent in Spiritism 
without knowing something about angels 
of which the Bible says so much. 

The Old Testament or Hebrew word for angel 
is "Malek", and the New Testament or Greek 
word, "angellus", both of them meaning "mes- 
senger" or "agent". The words are sometimes 
used of men and even of God Himself, but in the 
latter case always in the form of "The Angel of 
the Lord", an expression signifying the presence 
of the Deity in angelic form. The words are used 
impersonally in some instances also, but for our 
present purpose these need not be enumerated. 

Angels are spirits, superior to men and inferior 
to God (Ps. VIII. 4, 5 ; Heb. I. 7, 8) . They would 
seem to have bodies of some kind (Luke XX. 36) , 
and they have appeared in human form (always 
as men, not women), and have eaten food and 
lodged in houses (Gen. XVIII. 8; XIX. 3). 

39 



40 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

The number of angels is very great (Dan. VII. 
10; Ps. LXVIII. 17; Matt. XXVI. 53), and their 
power likewise, whether exercised in the material 
or spiritual world (Ps. OIL 20; 2 Kings XIX. 
35; 2 Thess. I. 7). And yet their power and 
knowledge are both limited (Dan. X. 13; Matt. 
XXIV. 36; Eph. III. 9, 10). 

Angels are employed both in heaven and on 
earth. In heaven they are worshippers (Matt. 

XVIII. 10; Rev. V. 11), but on earth they are 
associated with the affairs of providence, doing 
good to God's people and executing judgment on 
God's enemies, the latter ministry to be intensified 
at the end of the age (Ps. XC. 10-12; 2 Kings 

XIX. 35; I Thess. IV. 17). 

There appear to be graded positions and author- 
ity among them judging by the allusions to thrones, 
dominions, principalities and powers (Eph. I. 21), 
and by the mention of Michael as the Archangel 
(Dan. X. 13), and Gabriel as one who stands "in 
the presence of God" (Luke I. 19). 

There is a tendency towards speculation in con- 
sidering these beings against which we are earn- 
estly warned in Paul's letter to the Colossians; 
speculation that in the case of the Roman Catholic 
Church especially leads to superstition and their 
voluntary worship. On the other hand however, 
Protestantism may have thought too little about 
them, and have thereby greatly impoverished her 
experience of Divine providence and her sense of 



Angels and Demons 41 

succor and comfort in times of peril and sorrow, 
that succor and comfort which it is their office 
under God to freely and graciously supply. 



II 



But up until this point we have been dealing 
entirely with good or holy angels, while alas! 
there is another class of them, evil as well as good. 

And the evil angels are again divided into two 
classes. One consists of those that are in chains 
of darkness reserved unto judgment (2 Peter II. 
4) and the other of those that are actively en- 
gaged in evil, with Satan at their head. The latter 
are those of which Paul speaks in Eph. VI. 11, 12, 
where believers are exhorted to "put on the whole 
armor of God" that they "may be able to stand 
against the wiles of the devil," because they wrestle 
"against principalities, against powers, against the 
world-rulers of this darkness, and spiritual hosts 
of wickedness in the heavenly places." (See also 
Matthew XXV. 41 ; Rev. XII. 9). 

It is these that are in evidence, it is believed, in 
the present "spiritist invasion." Of their origin 
we know nothing more than we do of the good 
angels, which is simply that they were created by 
God (Col. I. 16). 

It is assumed also that all were created good, 
but that some fell as did Satan himself, though 
just when, or why they fell, God is not pleased to 



42 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

reveal. The following named Scriptures tell us 
about all we can know of the matter, John VIII. 
44; I Tim. III. 6, 7; 2 Peter II. 4; Jude 6, 7. 
From these we surmise that they abode not in the 
knowledge and worship of God, but fell into con^ 
demnation through pride. They kept not their 
first estate or principality, so to speak, but left 
their proper habitation. 

They are described sometimes as evil spirits 
(Judges IX. 23; Luke VII. 21), unclean spirits 
Matt. X. 1), and demons (Deut. XXXII. 17; 
Matt. VII. 22). This last word is erroneously 
rendered "devils" in the King James Version, as 
there is but one devil, who is identical with Satan, 
but there are many demons. So many indeed as to 
compose a kingdom with a leader, or prince (Luke 
VIII. 30; Matt. XII. 24-26; Eph. VI. 12). 

These demons are called Satan's agents in Matt. 
XII. 26, 27 and XXV. 41, and as such they seem 
able to inflict physical maladies on men (Matt. 
XII. 22; XVII. 15-18; Luke XIII. 16; and even 
enter and control their bodies and those of beasts 
also (Mark V. 13 ; Acts XVI. 16) ; while from the 
moral point of view they are able to seduce men 
from the truth and lead them into all uncleanness 
(1 Kings XXII. 22; 1 Tim. IV. 1; 2 Peter II. 
10-12). 

It is especially important to note that these de- 
mons maintain a conflict with Christian believers 
(Eph. VI. 12), and that God Himself sometimes 



Angels and Demons 43 

uses them in judgment upon unbelievers and 
wicked men (Judges IX. 23; 1 Sam. XVI. 14). 
They are to be used in the awful judgments upon 
the earth in the Tribulation period (Rev. IX. 
1-11; XVI. 13, 14) ; but their own eternal fate, 
like that of their mighty but unholy leader, is one 
of torment (Matt. VIII. 29; Luke VIII. 31). 

A deeply interesting question, and a very prac- 
tical one also, is that of the present abode of these 
evil spirits or demons. Keep in mind in the reply 
that there are two classes of them, the one re- 
served in chains of darkness of which we shall 
learn more by and by, and whose abode is hell or 
"Tartarus" (Greek) ; and the other occupying 
the air considered as one of the "heavenly places" 
so frequently mentioned in the New Testament. 
From this place however, they will be cast down to 
earth prior to the Millenium, and then at length 
go into the lake of fire and brimstone "prepared 
for the devil and his angels" (Rev, XII. 7-9; 
Matt. XXV. 41 ). 



ill 



In the preceding chapter we discussed the topic 
of demon worship and demon possession sufficient- 
ly for our present purpose, and only allude to it 
again as leading up to an earnest warning and 
appeal. 

Remember that which was previously stated.. 



44 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

(i), that demon possession is distinct from phys- 
ical disease; (2), that it was and is not limited 
to the time of Christ; and (3) that it is in evidence 
today and is predicted as one of the awful features 
of the Tribulation at the end of this age. 

Quoting from the Rev. F. B. Meyer, D.D., of 
London, in his booklet just from the press: 

"They hate to be unclothed, and would rather 
inhabit swine than have no covering (Matt. VIII. 
31). The nakedness of an evil spirit is torment 
before the time (Matt VIII. 29; Mark V. 7). 

"Their one object is to reduce the human race 
and drag it to their own degraded condition. Just 
as the Divine Spirit can only achieve His end by 
and through our instrumentality — and therefore, 
we are called to present our bodies to Him — so the 
great adversary can only achieve his end by and 
through human instruments, and therefore steals 
gradually over the consciousness of his victims un- 
til they are taken captive by the devil at his will 
(2 Tim. II. 26). 

"Apparently the Almighty has locked and bolted 
our human nature against the intrusion of the 
demon-world, and it is at our peril that we open 
the door from within or allow it to be broken in 
from without. The angels will not attempt to help 
us unless at the express command of the Almighty; 
but demon-spirits are disobedient and recalcitrant. 
They defy the Divine prohibition; and if they fail 
to break in by force, they can at least induce the 



Angels and Demons 45 

human soul to connive at their entrance by open- 
ing the door from within ; and when the door has 
been opened once it can be opened repeatedly, and 
each time more easily, until the power of resistance 
is gone, and the demon can go and come at will, 
or introduce seven companions worse than him- 
self. 

"A man of high repute told me recently that a 
lady had come to him complaining that her life 
was made a perfect torment by the suggestion of 
unclean spirits, of which she could not rid herself. 
She had been an habitue of seances, and now was 
held by a kind of obsession. He entreated her to 
promise to tear herself from their fatal spell, and 
she promised to go to but one more, on the fol- 
lowing day. But that day she became raving mad, 
rushed in an almost nude condition into the public 
thoroughfare, and has been for the last two years 
in an asylum. 

"If there has been any tampering with the 
demon-world, the urgency for immediate arrest is 
imperative, lest the current become too swift to be 
arrested by the oarsman, though he pull against 
it with the agony of despair." — The Modern 
Craze of Spiritualism, pp. 10, n. 



SPIRITISM BEFORE THE FLOOD 



THE task we have set ourselves would be 
inadequately rendered if attention were not 
called to the mysterious sixth chapter of 
Genesis, whose record of the marriages of "the 
sons of God" with "the daughters of men" and 
the issue of the same is intended to account for 
the catastrophe of the flood. The text follows: 

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the 
face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 

"That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they 
were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 

"And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with 
man, for that he also is flesh : yet his days shall be an hundred 
and twenty years. 

"There were giants in the earth in those days ; and also after 
that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of 
men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty 
men which were of old, men of renown." 

The question arises, Who were these "sons of 
God" and these "daughters of men" whose union 
produced the powerful and wicked race the iniquity 

46 



Spiritism Before the Flood 47 

of which resulted thus and necessitated this judg- 
ment? 

We who are familiar with the use of the first- 
named phrase in the New Testament might at first 
interpret it to mean men of faith, true believers, 
godly saints ; while the second would logically ap- 
ply to women of the opposite character. 

But reflection would recall that Moses was un- 
likely to be using New Testament terms, and that 
such phraseology would be foreign to conditions 
ante-dating the flood. 

Also, it might be asked, would godly men con- 
tract such marriages and in such a way, inasmuch 
as a plurality of wives and force in obtaining them 
seem to be implied? And even if they did, what 
would further explain the gigantic stature and 
colossal wickedness of their offspring bringing 
about so terrible a penalty as the flood? 

In searching for a different explanation we find 
that "sons of God" is used everywhere else in 
the Old Testament to designate angels, and why 
should it not be so used here? Moreover if it 
were so used, it would carry with it a confounding 
of two distinct orders of creatures and the pro- 
duction of a mixed race, partly human, partly 
super-human, which would be just such a derange- 
ment of the Divine plan as to warrant that which 
occurred, namely, the almost total extermination 
of all who were upon the the earth. 

Indeed this was the prevailing view of the pas- 



48 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

sage in the ancient synagogue of the Jews and 
among Christian theologians for the first three or 
four centuries of the Church. And there is reason 
to believe it would not have changed in the latter 
case, had it not been for certain erroneous opin- 
ions and practices of Christendom, to which ref- 
erence will be made later, and with which it was 
not in harmony. 

But naturally there exists a prejudice against 
such a view. How could such intercourse be pos- 
sible between the visible and invisible worlds, such 
an unnatural connection between beings so widely 
different from each other? 

It is our purpose to deal with this question be- 
fore we conclude, but a more important one pre- 
cedes it. It is not, as Nicodemus said, u How can 
these things be?" but rather, Is it true that they 
are? However inconceivable or inexplicable the 
fact may be, it is first necessary to show that it is 
a fact. 

In doing this we now address ourselves to two 
theories that have been most persistently main- 
tained in opposition to it. The first, a Jewish 
interpretation which holds the "sons of God" to 
mean men of authority or rank who married wom- 
en of inferior station; and the second, the Church 
interpretation already mentioned, which holds that 
godly men, the descendants of Seth for example, 
chose for wives women of godless life belonging 
to the line of Cain. 



Spiritism Before the Flood 49 



ii 



The Jewish interpretation has been paraphrased 
thus: "When men began to multiply on the earth 
the chief men took wives of all the handsome poor 
women they chose. They were tyrants in the 
earth of those days. Also, after the antediluvian 
days, powerful men had unlawful connexions with 
the inferior women, and the children which sprang 
from this illicit intercourse were the renowned 
heroes of antiquity, of whom the heathen made 
their gods." 

The ground on which this interpretation was 
founded is that the Hebrew word for God, 
Elohim, is sometimes used in the Old Testament 
to denote judges or princes, hence "sons of God" 
might mean sons of judges or sons of princes. 
And the Hebrew word for man, Adam, is occas- 
ionally used to denote one whose station in the 
world is lowly or poor, hence "daughters of men" 
might mean daughters of the lowly or the poor. 

It is admitted that Elohim (gods) is, in a few 
instances, applied in the Old Testament to Israel- 
itish magistrates acting representatively for Je- 
hovah, but there is nothing in this passage of that 
character. Moreover this word is not Elohim 
simply, but Bne-ha-Elohim, a very different ex- 
pression, which means "sons of God", and which 
in every other instance stands, not for men of any 



50 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

grade or distinction, but for angels. Therefore, 
the inference is fair that if in this place, Moses 
had intended men however great, he would not 
have used that word but some other, of which there 
were several from which to choose. 

It is admitted also that Adam is, in some places, 
applied to human beings of low degree, but when 
women of low degree are meant the word is al- 
ways used in connection with the word Ish, which 
is not the case here. Otherwise the word simply 
means a man, or mankind in general, without dis- 
tinction of class or condition. Moreover the par- 
ticular word now under discussion is not Adam 
simply, but Bnoth-ha-Adam, "daughters of Men," 
which occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament, 
so that no argument can be founded upon its usage, 

"In short," to quote another, "women of high 
station as well as low are Bnoth-ha-Adam" and 
the title simply means Adam's daughters, female 
descendants, womankind without distinction. 

Indeed it is difficult to understand how such an 
interpretation of the passage ever found accept- 
ance considering its extreme improbability. How 
unlikely, to continue quoting, "that all the great 
men of the day, or even a large proportion of them, 
should, at the same time and with one consent, 
contract such alliances? And how unlikely that 
female beauty should just then have appeared, and 
only or chiefly, in women of the lower rank; and 
that it should have possessed such strongly attrac- 



Spiritism Before the Flood 51 

tive power in the case of all these "sons of God" ? 

And stranger still, how improbable the results 
that followed? Why should it have come about 
that the marriage of the judges, or princes, of that 
age with women of low degree but of great beauty, 
should have issued in mighty men of renown, a 
heroic race of gigantic size, celebrated for their 
exploits through succeeding time? 

And strangest of all, the Hebrew word for 
"giants" in verse four is Nephilim, which means 
"fallen ones," as to whom there can be little doubt 
that they were more than human beings and de- 
rived their origin in part from a superhuman 
source. 

A word of explanation seems necessary before 
leaving the Jewish interpretation, by which of 
course is not meant that of the ancient Jewish 
synagogue mentioned above, but that of Jewish 
teachers of a later time, say, the early centuries of 
the Christian era. The Jewish synagogue, as was 
said, held to the angel interpretation. 

Just what prompted the change of interpetation 
from that of angels to that of great men is not 
known except that it could not have been on ex- 
egetical grounds. Fleming, from whose work on 
The Fallen Angels and the Heroes of Mythology 
we are quoting, thinks it may have been dogmatic 
considerations concerning the nature of angels of 
which we shall speak by and by; but suffice for 
the present to re-affirm that the angelic interpeta- 



52 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

tion was the first which suggested itself, and that 
it was very anciently received both by Jews and 
Christians. 



Ill 



A fair and clear statement of the later Christian, 
or Church, interpretation is given by Dr. John 
Gill in his Exposition of the Old Testament, pub- 
lished in the middle of the 18th century. He says: 
"Those sons of God were not angels, because 
angels are incorporeal beings, and can not be af- 
fected with fleshly lusts, or marry and be given 
in marriage, or generate and be generated. Nor 
were they the sons of judges, magistrates and great 
personages; but rather is the phrase to be under- 
stood of the posterity of Seth, who from the time 
of Enos, when men began to be called by the Name 
of the Lord (Gen. IV. 26), had the title of 'sons 
of God' in distinction from the children of men." 

All this is pure assumption on Dn Gill's part, 
and was to be expected, since no serious attempt 
seems to have been made by him to ascertain the 
real meaning of the words in their place whatever 
the consequences might be. For example, what 
ground outside of his own opinion, had he for 
saying that angels are incorporeal, etc.? And 
similarly, what ground for saying all that he does 
say about the posterity of Seth? 

However, he has plenty of company among com- 



Spiritism Before the Flood 53 

mutators and others, including some of the poets, 
Milton as an illustration, in Paradise Lost. And 
yet, that great poet, in Paradise Regained Book 
II, returns to the angel interpretation, where he 
makes Satan, after the failure of his first tempta- 
tion of Christ, in addressing the infernal council, 
say to Belial : 

"Before the flood, thou with thy lusty crew, 
False titled sons of God, roaming the earth, 
Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men, 
And coupled with them, and begot a race." 

What, however, explains the abandonment of 
the earlier angel interpretation for this of the sons 
of Seth? The most likely answer is that of John 
Henry Kurtz, D.D., professor of theology at Dor- 
pat, quoted at some length by Fleming, who at- 
tributes it to the rise of certain superstitions and 
unwarrantable practices in the church growing out 
of false ideas as to the nature of angels. 

In other words, it was the coming in of angel 
worship that drove it out. Angel worship raised 
its head gradually, but its progress tended to re- 
move everything that might shake confidence in 
the holiness of angels, or mar the gratification 
which their worship afforded. 

There was also a second cause which was almost 
equally influential with the first, namely the spread 
of celibacy, or monkery, as Kurtz calls it, and the 
reverence with which it came to be regarded in 



54 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

the early centuries. If Genesis VI. 1-4 taught 
that although the angels in heaven marry not, yet 
at one time a portion of them, seduced by the 
beauty of women, came down to earth for the pur- 
pose of gratifying amorous propensities, then a 
weakness of the like kind on the part of "earthly 
angels" might be more readily excused. As a 
matter of fact such an apology was pleaded for 
monkish transgressions, at the time, and it there- 
fore became a pretext for changing angelic "sons 
of God" into human "sons of God." 

It was not until the last century that the angel 
interpretation began again to find favor with 
Christian theologians. And for its revival by the 
way, we are, in a sense, indebted to the destructive 
critics. Their attacks upon the Bible necessitated 
a return to the old-fashioned way of studying it 
with the aid of the grammar and lexicon. Exegesis 
thus has been restored to its rightful place, and 
exegesis never attempts to explain away uncommon 
or supernatural occurrences just because it does not 
understand them. 

We have spoken of Fleming's work on The Fal- 
len Angels, but he, in turn, is indebted to Kurtz 
above named, and to Maitland's essays on the 
same subject and on False Worship, as well as to 
Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations. Following these 
authorities he goes on to deal at length with collat- 
eral aspects of the question for which we have not 
the space or time except to mention them. They 



Spiritism Before the Flood 55 

include the suppositions and assumptions that are 
involved in the Sethite interpretation, an examina- 
tion of Genesis IV. 26, which speaks of Seth's 
descendants, a careful inquiry into the use of a 
phrase analogous to "the sons of God" wherever 
it occurs either in the Old or New Testament, and 
the antithesis of the "sons of God" and "daughters 
of men." 

We have studied him with care, and feel con- 
vinced that the improbabilities involved in the 
Sethite, or as we have called it, the Church inter- 
pretation, are so serious as to put it out of court. 



IV 



In the next chapter we deal with the angel in- 
terpretation and the objections to it growing out 
of the supposed nature of angels. But we con- 
clude this with some general observations in antici- 
pation of it: 

1. It has already been suggested that while 
angels are immaterial beings, yet they appear to 
possess, or at least are able to assume, some kind 
of an ethereal, corporeal form. At the same time 
it is to be remembered that the human race is com- 
posed of immaterial beings, clothed at present with 
gross bodies akin to beasts, but hereafter, in the 
case of the redeemed at least, to be clothed with 
spiritual bodies not unlike that of angels. If, 
therefore, there is in our nature a capability of 



56 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

becoming like angels in some degree, 13 it so cer- 
tain that they are as dissimilar to us in all re- 
spects as many people believe? 

2. We have seen also that angels, both good 
and bad, are interested in the affairs of men, and 
have communicated with men. How much more 
intimate that communication might have been had 
not sin entered the human family, who can say? 
And if there is a possibility of greater communica- 
tion if God willed it so, is it unlikely that evil 
angels, should it suit their propensities, would en- 
deavor to make it so whether it was His will or 
not? 

"We can not hold it to be an absurd proposi- 
tion," writes Kurtz, quoted by Fleming, u that an- 
gels who, in their state of holiness, desire to look 
into the deepest mystery of grace on earth (I 
Peter I. 12), should, in their apostasy from holi- 
ness, have desired to look into the deepest mystery 
of nature on earth; and, transgressing the limits 
of their own nature, participate in that mystery 
themselves." 



VI 



"SONS OF GOD" MARRYING THE 
"DAUGHTERS OF MEN" 



IN the preceding chapter we have seen that 
Spiritism in one of its forms was directly re- 
sponsible for the flood. The "sons of God" 
who took to themselves wives of "the daughters 
of men" (Genesis VI), were evil angels, who en- 
tered upon that intercourse the offspring of which 
were the "Nephilim," "the fallen ones," the 
mighty heroes of antiquity. These in their turn, 
presumably, furnished the ground for the stories 
of the loves of the gods and demigods of classic 
lore. 

The proof of this being presented, as well as 
its corroboration by the ancient Jewish synagogue 
and the early Christian writers, it remains to more 
fully consider objections raised against it on the 
ground of the nature of angels as well as the 
teaching of our Lord in Matthew XXII. 30. 

It is said for example, that an angel is alto- 

57 



58 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

gether spiritual and immaterial, and hence such 
implied intercourse is impossible. 

To this it might only be necessary to reply, 

( i ) Even if it were true, even if the angelic 
nature were such, it could not change the fact 
stated in the text, that "the sons of God" took 
to themselves wives of "the daughters of men," 
the offspring of which were as described. Nor 
could it change the fact that "sons of God" is a 
phrase everywhere in the Old Testament used of 
angels, and not men. 

That is to say, faith does not wait to learn the 
possibility of a thing before it believes it. It 
believes it on the evidence presented, assuming its 
possibility until the opposite has been shown. 

In this case, however, "impossibility never can 
be shown until an exhaustive knowledge is pos- 
sessed of all that is possible to angels in the line 
of sinful degeneracy within the powers bestowed 
upon them at creation." (Kurtz, quoted by Flem- 
ing, p. 89.) 

(2) This leads to the remark that no one is 
qualified to say just what the angelic nature may 
be, because no one really knows. On the other 
hand, the implications are against the spiritual and 
immaterial idea as shown in our former chap- 
ters dealing with satan, angels and demons. An- 
gels have appeared to men in human form, and 
have been taken for men, and have partaken of 
food like human beings. 



"Sons of God" 59 

It may be said that these were instances where 
God wrought miracles to produce the phenomenon, 
and hence that they furnish no standard for judg- 
ing of what angels in rebellion might do. 

But what right have we to suppose a miracle? 
The Bible being silent on the question of a mir- 
acle in such instances, why should we introduce it? 
Especially, why should we do so when we know 
that the working of miracles on God's part is re- 
served for great emergencies? 

Moreover, angels themselves may work mir- 
acles, as we have already seen. What about Sa- 
tan's assumption of the body of a serpent in Eden? 
What about the magicians withstanding Moses in 
Egypt? What about the beast with the two horns 
in the book of Revelation (XIII, 11-15), and 
"the spirits of demons working miracles which go 
forth unto the kings of the whole world to gather 
them to the battle of that great day of God Al- 
mighty?" (Rev. XVI, 13, 14.) 

Angels do not possess power to create something 
out of nothing, which is alone the prerogative of 
God, but they may be able so to combine existing 
elements as to form for themselves bodies similar 
to the human. 

(3) It may be questioned whether there is any 
being in the universe who is simply spiritual and 
immaterial, except the Infinite Himself, Who is 
above and beyond all time and space. Isaac Tay- 
lor in his Physical Theory of Another Life, takes 



60 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

the position that the idea of an absolutely incor- 
poreal being is irreconcilable with that of a finite 
creature, because anything created can subsist and 
work only within the limits of time and space, 
and corporeality confines the creature to such 
limits. It is God only Who exists above and be- 
yond these limits. 

In other words, an embodied state of some 
kind is indispensable to a finite mind, whose fac- 
ulties can not otherwise come into play or pro- 
duce effects. 

(4) As Fleming reminds us, should all these 
views still be unsatisfactory, there remains the 
fact that human bodies have been possessed by 
evil spirits, which may have been the case here. 
Through the medium of such bodies thus pos- 
sessed, "the sons of God" may have had the in- 
tercourse referred to. 

Indeed this has been the opinion of some of 
the older commentators, and is suggested as early 
as the Clementine Homilies (Horn. IX). It is 
a very simple, and yet sufficient, solution of the 
difficulty, for we are taught in the Gospels that 
the powers and faculties of the human being thus 
possessed were completely controlled, intensified 
and directed by the demon, or else that the two na- 
tures, in some incomprehensible manner were inter- 
fused and the weaker overborne by the stronger. 

The remarkable physical proportions, the super- 
human strength and the evil disposition of the 



"Sons of God" 61 

Nephilim would be the natural effects of such a 
power imparted to human beings by fallen spirits. 
Nor would such possession necessarily involve the 
suffering of physical and mental evils to which 
demoniacs of the Gospels w r ere subjected, for 
Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, 
and no doubt his emissaries would conduct them- 
selves in a way to accomplish the object they had 
in view. (The Fallen Angels, p. 95.) 

(5) One more supposition is still to be con- 
sidered, namely, that "the sons of God" in their 
spiritual nature, or at the most in some kind of 
subtle, ethereal body, or with the appearance of 
a human body, might in some incomprehensible 
way effect w r hat the text in Genesis declares to 
have been the fact. Augustine in the City of 
God, book 15, thinks this possible; and so also 
does Dr. Henry More, an English divine and 
philosopher of the seventeenth century (Mystery 
of Godliness, book III, C. 18), and the Rev. 
Theo. Campbell in the Irish Ecclesiastical Ga- 
zette, 1867, all quoted by Fleming. 

Of course this involves difficulties of its own, 
and is not presented as a solution, but merely as 
a supposition worthy of consideration. Those who 
wish to consider it further will find a good deal 
of information in a book easily accessible, known 
as Earth's Earliest Ages, by G. H. Pember, pp. 
205-213, 375-391, edition of 1885, Armstrong, 
New York. 



62 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

We quote a paragraph or two from this work: 

"Spiritualists teach that all will marry in the 
next world, if they do not in this; and that true 
marriage lasts through eternity. The natural in- 
ference is that the true spouses of some are already 
in the spirit-land. And to such an extent is this 
inference followed out that many are reported to 
be receiving visits and communications from those 
spiritual beings with whom they are to be united 
forever. The ceremonious marriage of a woman 
to a demon is a thing not unknown in the United 
States." 

He mentions a book called "An Angel's Mes- 
sage," claiming to be communications from a spirit 
to an English lady, his destined bride for eternity. 
The demon-lover describes himself as the spirit 
of a man of deep religious feeling, who, during 
his sojourn in the flesh was accustomed to visit 
the house of the lady's father, though at that 
time he found no attraction in her. In the course 
of years he died, as did also the mother of the 
lady. Soon after the decease of the latter her 
daughter began to receive communications under- 
stood to come from the mother, in the course of 
svhich the demon-lorer is introduced, and there- 
after inspires the medium, (i.e., the lady in the 
case) himself. It is she who, under his inspira- 
tion and control now pens the following: 

"She who writes these lines is my wife more 
than may be thought possible by those who have 



"Sons of God " 63 

not had a similar state opened in themselves. She 
is not so as to her natural body, but she is so as to 
her spiritual body. For 'there is a natural body, 
and there is a spiritual body.' The one is within 
the other as a kernel within a shell. 

"But this state can come to the outward percep- 
tion of those only who are open to spirit-inter- 
course. No others can perceive, during their life 
in the world of nature, that which belongs to the 
spirit alone. This state constitutes mediumship; 
for she who is mine is not only a writing medium, 
but she is also susceptible of very palpable im- 
pressions of my presence with her. We are one; 
and she has received the assurance of that truth 
by other means than the merely being told so in 
these writings." 

There is much more to the same effect; but 
that which we have quoted is sufficient to unveil 
the danger which may be threatening many. 

II 

It remains to speak of our Lord's words in 
Matthew XXII, 30, and the parallels, where in 
rebuking the Sadducees, He says : 

"Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of 
God. 
For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in 

marriage, but are the angels of God in heaven." 

Two ways of meeting this objection in harmony 



64 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

with the foregoing have been suggested. On« is, 
to say that Christ is speaking of the holy angels 
only, from which no inference is to be drawn as to 
that of which the same beings might be capable if 
fallen from their original state. 

The other is, that He is stressing the word 
"heaven", meaning that they do not marry in 
heaven, but saying nothing as to what they might 
do under other circumstances or in a different en- 
vironment The first is the view of Kurtz the 
theologian, and the second that of Nagelsbach, 
the commentator, in the Lange series. 

But is either hypothesis a necessity? It is true 
that angels always appear in the Bible as mascu- 
line, never feminine, the former being the gender 
used of beings in whom sexual distinctions do not 
exist; but is it inconceivable that the germ of 
such distinction may be latent in their nature? 

Man, for example, was not created to sin, and 
yet he had in his constitution the capability of 
sinning, a capability which came into operation in 
his departing from the ordinance of the Creator. 
In like manner it is thought, the germ spoken of 
as a possibility in the angelic nature might be 
unfolded as a result of wilful departure from the 
original condition of existence, and the sinking 
to a lower and unnatural state in apostasy from 
God. 

Our author quotes Paradise Lost, Book I, where 
Milton names the chiefs of the fallen angels after 



"Sons of God" 65 

the idols of the Canaanites and others, and of 
some he says, they bore the names 

"Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male, 
These feminine, for spirits, when they please, 
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft 
And uncompounded is their essence pure." 

Finally, following Kurtz again, there is an an- 
alogy seen in the resurrection life of man. In 
this world he has the distinction of sex, but in 
that which is beyond, i.e., in heaven, he will neither 
marry nor be given in marriage, but in that re- 
spect be equal to the angels. 

"Therefore, is it unlawful to infer that, in the 
event of the angels falling, by their own wilful act, 
from the higher to the lower sphere of existence, 
a degradation of their nature, analogous to the ele- 
vation in the other case, may take place, and that 
thus might be developed that power which be- 
longed to the lower grade, but of which the prin- 
ciple always existed in the upper?" 



VII 
ABOMINATIONS OF THE CANAANITES 



IN introducing the theme of this chapter we 
return for the moment to Genesis VI, 4, which 
was under consideration in the two immediate- 
ly preceding. That verse read, 

"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also 
after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters 
of men, and they bare children to them, the same became 
mighty men which were of old, men of renown." 

We have seen that "giants" is in the Hebrew, 
"Nephilim," which means the "fallen ones," or 
the "fallen angels," identifying them, as we think 
correctly, with the "sons of God." Others indeed 
would identify them with the "mighty men," the 
"men of renown" also mentioned in the verse as 
the offspring of the marriages of the "sons of 
God" with the "daughters of men." But for our 
present purpose it is not essential which applica- 

66 



Abominations of the Canaanites 67 

tion is made as we are chiefly interested in the 
phrase, "and also, after that." 

Some would limit this phrase to the antediluv- 
ian age, and interpret it as meaning that after 
the first irruption of the fallen angels and the 
warning of God concerning it, others also occur- 
red with like results during the 120 years of re- 
spite, until it repented the Lord that He had 
made man on the earth and He determined to 
destroy him. 

Others, however, would say that it had a post- 
diluvian application, and that the word and the 
fact for which it stands come to light again in the 
history of the Canaanities whom Israel dispos- 
sessed, as illustrated in Numbers XIII, 33. At 
that chapter and verse some of the spies whom 
Moses dispatched to bring a report of the land 
returned with the story that all the people were 
men of great stature; "and there we saw the giants 
(Nephilim) the sons of Anak, which come of 
the giants (Nephilim) ; and we were in our own 
sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their 
sight." 

In this instance the same word seems to be used 
for the "fallen ones" and their offspring both of 
which were "giants" or "nephilim"; and the cir- 
cumstance of their presence in that land seems to 
account for God's command to extirpate the Ca- 
naanites much as the greater judgment had fallen 
upon the whole race at the flood. 



68 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 



ii 



The above, however, is merely introductory to 
a consideration of the general teaching of the 
Old Testament on the subject of Spiritism and its 
related phenomena following the flood. 

To quote the author of The Vital Choice : En- 
dor or Calvary, "the existence of mediums — indi- 
viduals who, having discovered that they had cer- 
tain gifts, made a practice of communicating with 
the spirit world — is taken for granted in the Bible, 
where they are referred to as wizards, witches, 
necromancers, etc. The details of their methods 
are not given to any extent, but what we do know 
about them leads us to suppose that, with the pos- 
sible exception of automatic writing, there is no 
material difference in their methods from those 
now in vogue." 

Indeed, even this excepton may be unnecessary. 
For example, a certain class of the magicians both 
in Egypt and Babylon were known as "sacred 
scribes" (Genesis XLI, 8, margin), the root He- 
brew word meaning a "style" or pen, and signify- 
ing those members of the priestly caste whose 
magic was somewhat concerned with writing. 

Pember thinks they may have been identical with 
the writing mediums of our day, whom he speaks 
of as divided into five classes: 

( i ) Those whose passive hand is moved by the 



Abominations of the Canaanites 69 

spirit without any mental volition ©f thmr 
own; 

(2) Those into whose mind each word is sep- 
arately insinuated at the moment of its inscrip- 
tion ; 

(3) Those who write from the dictation of 
spirit-voices; 

(4) Those who copy words and sentences pro- 
jected before them in letters of light; and 

(5) Those in whose presence spirit-hands, visi- 
ble, or invisible, take up the pen and write the 
words. 

Of course the attitude of the Bible, or rather 
the attitude of God, for the Bible is the revelation 
of His mind and will, is that of absolute and un- 
sparing condemnation of all these things, not only 
because the glory of His Name is involved, but 
also the highest and eternal welfare of the race 
which He has created and redeemed. 

A few illustrations of this attitude are given: 

Take for example, the command at Sinai, "Thou 
shalt not suffer a witch to live" (Exodus XXII. 
18). This can not be concerned with mere super- 
stition or deception, there must be reality behind 
it, real and wilful fellowship with the powers of 
evil, or such a penalty would not follow. 

And this suggestion is strengthened by the repe- 
tition of the command in Leviticus (XX. 27) "A 
man also, or a woman, that hath a familar spirit, 
or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death; 



70 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

they shall stone them with stones ; their blood shall 
be upon them." 

The Hebrew word for "familiar spirit" is pro- 
nounced "ob" or "ohv", and means the same as 
"necromancer", one who professes to talk with the 
dead or with Satan. This shows conclusively that 
the inhabitation of any one with an "ohv" must 
have been the result of voluntary acquiescence, 
since God would not thus punish that which was 
involuntary. 

"Wizard" is a different word, but its significance 
is not essentially dissimilar, viz., a knowing person, 
one instructed in the art of holding intercourse 
with demons. 

It may be of interest to explain that the word 
"ohv" originally signified a skin bottle, i.e., a skin 
filled with wine, and hence inflated and tumid. 
This tumidity being a characteristic of those in 
whom a demon or an "ohv" dwelt, the word came 
to be applied both to the person thus affected and 
to the spirit that caused it. Parkhurst, in his He- 
brew and Chaldee Lexicon, quotes a passage in 
Virgil which describes the swollen and altered 
form of the Pythoness or demon-possessed woman, 
and adds, "this shows what the heathen meant in 
speaking of their diviners being pleni deo, full of 
the god." 

HI 

We now come to the remarkable passage in the 



Abominations of the Canaanites 71 

eighteenth of Deuteronomy which gives the title to 
this chapter. It is part of Moses' fareweli to 
Israel before his departure out of this life, and 
just prior to their entrance upon Canaan, under 
Joshua : 

"When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy 
God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abom- 
inations of those nations. There shall not be found among 
you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass 
through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of 
times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or charmer, or a consulter 
with familiar spirits or a wizard, or a necromancer." 

I. Let us study the meaning of these terms: 

Passing "through the fire" has been taken by 
some to mean the worship of Moloch referred to 
in Leviticus XVIII. 21. Moloch was a god of 
the Phenicians, whose worship embraced human 
sacrifice of the most terrible nature, for example, 
the passing of live infants through the folded arms 
of the image heated to a white heat. 

But that application in the present case is now 
considered incorrect, and it is thought that the 
words really mean "a sort of purification by fire, 
or, a fire baptism, by which the worshippers were 
consecrated to the god, and supposed to be freed 
from the fear of a violent death," It was a 
kind of charm or spell, and hence classed here with 
sorcery or witchcraft. 

Occasion has been taken in the earlier chap- 
ters to warn readers against playing with the sem- 



72 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

blance of these wicked things because of their 
subtle and alluring power, and another occasion 
offers itself at this point. It is suggested in a 
footnote of Pember's, Earth's Earliest Ages (p. 
258), where he affirms that this practice is still 
kept up in parts of Christendom by the midsum- 
mer fires of St. John's eve. He quotes a Wesleyan 
minister as saying that, at Midsummer, on many 
of the hills of Herefordshire, England, fires were 
burning, while the peasantry danced around them; 
and the ceremony was not completed until some of 
the young people had passed "through the 
fire." 

A second command is against using "divination", 
which the Revised Version renders "practising aug- 
ury." This, however, does not clear up the mean- 
ing of the word very much, since "augury" is de- 
fined as the art of foretelling by signs or omens, 
a species of modern fortune-telling in which alas ! 
not a few professing Christians are guilty of in- 
dulging. 

"An observer of times." The English render- 
ing of this would indicate a diviner by the clouds, 
but the Hebrew simply suggests such observation 
as requires the use of the eye in minute inspection, 
and might apply to the entrails of victims. Pem- 
ber however finds in it the meaning of a fascinator 
with the eyes, or in modern language, a mesmerist, 
one who throws another into a magnetic sleep and 
obtains oracular sayings from him. 



Abominations of the Canaanites 73 

"Enchanter" is not regarded as an accurate 
translation of the Hebrew, which simply seems to 
denote quick observation of some kind, either of 
the eye or ear, and then of divining. The ob- 
servation may be that of the singing or the flight of 
birds or other aerial phenomena. 

"Witch" or "wizard" is translated elsewhere 
"sorcerer", and means "to pray", but its applica- 
tion shows that the prayer is directed to false gods 
or demons. 

"Charmer", "consulter with familiar spirits", 
"wizard", "necromancer", are the words used in 
verse n, on which Benjamin Wills Newton, an- 
other English author, remarks: "Comparing 
verse n with verse 10, the last-named treats of 
those kinds of divination in w r hich demons are 
not immediately addressed, but consulted by the 
intervention of signs or enchantments, while verse 
1 1 implies a more direct appeal to evil spirits." 

Thus the first word "charmer", literally means 
to bind or join together, and applies to one who 
by incantations and invocations seeks to bring de- 
mons into association with himself. Some seances 
are opened with the chanting or singing of hymns 
for this object, which leads Mr. Newton to say, 
very properly, "let no one who sings hymns in 
spiritualistic seances and thus invokes demons ever 
dare to sing unto God, for he is not a worshipper 
of God, but of Satan." 

The remainder of the words in this verse so 



74 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

approximate the others in meaning as to make it 
unnecessary to enlarge upon them. 



IV 



II. Let us give attention to the command and 
the warning that follow the terms used : 

"For all that do these things are an abomination unto the 
Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God 
doth drive them out from before thee. 

"Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. 

"For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto 
observers of times, and unto diviners ; but as for thee, the 
Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do." 

An "abomination" is that which God detests, 
and which He must cast away or separate from 
Himself. Just what this meant in the mundane 
sphere, to the nation of the Canaanites, is revealed 
in the book of Joshua. But what it meant to 
them as individuals in the life to come, if unre- 
pentant, who can appreciate or describe? 

But if these things were an abomination in 
God's sight then, must they not be an abomination 
still? Has there been any change in His nature or 
in their nature? If He detested and cast them 
away from Himself then, must He not detest and 
cast them away from Himself now? 

In other words, how can the Spiritist, and his 
kind, expect God's favor either in this world or 
that which is to come? Insanity multiplying as 



Abominations of the Canaanites 75 

one of the results of this unholy intercourse is 
only symptomatic after all. A casting away from 
God goes deeper and farther than that. 

"Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy 
God." Perfect" in the margin reads, "upright 
or sincere." God is addressing only His chosen 
people, those whom He had redeemed from 
Egypt, and who, amid the thunders and lightnings 
of Sinai had avowed, "AH that the Lord hath 
spoken we will do" (Exodus XIX. 8). 

To be "upright or sincere" meant that they 
should keep that vow, and to keep it was income 
patible with the worship and service of demons. 
Worship and service is something more than a 
ceremonial or a prayer. It implies trust, submis- 
sion, obedience. They who seek unto wizards, and 
necromancers and diviners, do so for counsel and 
advice, and for information concerning the un- 
known which influences both character and con- 
duct. In other words, it begets trust and confi- 
dence in, and commands submission and obedience 
to the false gods represented by those unhappy 
beings. 

No wonder it should be written, "As for thee, 
the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do." 
Israel might so do, but they must suffer for it. If 
not in all respects as the Canaanites suffered who 
were not His chosen, yet so as to lead them to "see 
it to be an evil thing and a bitter that thou hast 
forsaken the Lord thy God" (Jeremiah II. 19). 



76 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 



III. The command and the warning is followed 
by a promise : 

"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from 
the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye 
shall hearken; 

"According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God 
in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear 
again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this 
great fire any more, that I die not. 

"And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that 
which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from 
among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words 
in his mouth ; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall 
command him. 

"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken 
unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require 
it of him." 

When the law was given Israel at Horeb, by 
an audible voice, so terrible was the sight that 
even Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake, " 
and the people "entreated that the word should 
not be spoken to them any more" (Heb. XIL 19) . 
"Go thou near," said they to Moses, "and hear 
all that the Lord our God shall say; and speak 
thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak 
unto thee; and we will hear it, and do it" (Deu- 
teronomy V. 27). 

God took them at their word, and graciously ap- 
pointed Moses to be their mediator. And now 



Abominations of the Canaanites 77 

that he was about to be taken from them ere they 
crossed the Jordan, a successor had already been 
announced. Joshua was the prophet from the 
midst of them like unto Moses whom God had 
raised up, and unto whom they were to 
hearken. 

They need not fear to follow Joshua just as 
they had followed Moses, and the secret of their 
continued blessing, victory and prosperity de- 
pended on their obeying the one as they had the 
other. Whoso would not hearken unto Joshua's 
words as unto Moses, words w T hich would be 
put "in his mouth" by God, and which he would 
speak in His Name, it would be required of 
him. 

Manifestly, Joshua was but the type of all the 
other prophets and commanders of the people who 
should follow him, and whom God sent to Israel 
in the later days, "rising up early and sending 
them," as is so often repeated in the language of 
Jeremiah, and to whom alas ! they would not 
listen. 

But very especially is Joshua the type of Christ 
as the New Testament so definitely declares (John 
I. 17; Acts III. 19-26). And it is this last-men- 
tioned fact that brings the command and the warn- 
ing, as well as the promise, up to date. Here God 
brings us face to face with His Son in whose mouth 
His words are, and concerning whom it comes to 
us with cumulative force that God will require it 



78 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

of any one who fails to listen to and obey what He 
says. 

But it must not be supposed that Christ's words 
are limited to the few He spake while present with 
us in the flesh. Christ is God. The Jesus of the 
New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old Testa- 
ment. The Incarnate Word is the inspirer of the 
written word. Peter tells us distinctly that the 
prophets who spake of the grace that should come 
unto us, searched "what, or what manner of time, 
the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify 
when He testified beforehand" (i Peter I. 10, 

ii). 

Christ's words are the words of the whole Bible, 
and it is to them we must hearken, and them that 
we must obey. 

How clear, and rich and comfortable they are, 
satisfying every human need, every yearning and 
every aspiration! Is it a question of guidance in 
our daily walk? Is it the supply of our common 
needs, what we shall eat and drink, and our body, 
"what we shall put on"? Are we longing for 
solace and fellowship in sorrow? Are we peering 
into the darkness for some trace of departed foot- 
steps, straining our ears for some echo of voices 
that seem forever lost? 

This is the answer to our need: "In nothing 
be anxious; but in everything by prayer and sup- 
plication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be 
made known unto God. And the peace of God, 



Abominations of the Canaanites 79 

which passeth all understanding, shall guard your 
hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus." (Phil- 
ippians IV. 6, 7. R.V.) 



VIII 
SPIRITISM IN ISRAEL AND JUDAH 



IN previous chapters it has been said that the 
spiritistic medium does not bring back the 
dead, but that the "familiar spirit" who con- 
trols the medium appears able to personate the 
dead. Satan knows very much, some would say 
he knows all, about the life of every human being, 
for he ever goes "about seeking whom he may 
devour." At least information could be procured 
with lightning speed from the demons which had 
watched the life of the person invoked, and then 
communicated to the "control" in any given case. 

But while we say that the dead do not come 
back, it is known to readers of the Bible that some 
apparent exceptions must be made. Take the case 
of the transfiguration of Christ, when "Behold, 
two men talked with him, which were Moses and 
Elias, who appeared in glory and spake of his de- 
cease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem" 
(Luke IX. 30, 31).^ 

Take the crucifixion, when "the graves were 

80 



Spiritism in Israel and Judah 81 

opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept 
arose, and came out of the graves after his resur- 
rection, and went into the holy city and appeared 
unto many" (Matt. XXVII. 52, 53). 

And then there were Lazarus and the son of 
the widow of Nain, but these are instances of the 
raising of the dead where there was a second oc- 
currence of death. In the others the dead saints 
appeared only for a little while and then immedi- 
ately vanished, not appearing again. 

With the exception of Samuel of whose case 
this chapter treats, there is no similar record of 
the dead returning to this world. And in no case 
except his, did the dead speak to or in any other 
way communicate with the living. 

Moses and Elijah spake with Christ but did not 
speak to the disciples. The saints rising at His 
resurrection was a special testimony to that fact. 
As another expresses it, "When Christ died, the 
graves were opened to show that there was power 
in His death to open the graves of believers; and 
when three days later, He arose, they arose with 
Him to show that there was power in His resur- 
rection to bring them forth." 

They appeared unto many, but so far as we 
know they did not speak to a single person. 

II 

Samuel's case is unique. Saul, the king of Is- 



82 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

rael at the time, had professedly put the necro- 
mancers out of Israel at the Divine command, be- 
ing urged to do it doubtless, by Samuel himself. 

But now the glittering helms and spears of an 
invading army surrounded him, and his heart 
trembled with gloomy forebodings. The Spirit 
of the Lord no longer came upon him, and the 
phantoms of past sins floated continually before his 
eyes taking away rest and all steadfastness of pur- 
pose. Samuel who had so long borne with and 
entreated for him was dead. He tried to pray, but 
iniquity was in his heart and the Lord would not 
hear him. He was answered no more neither by 
dreams, nor by Urim, nor by the prophets. No 
voice answered to his despairing cry. 

Then he yielded to the evil thought, and per- 
haps stifling his conscience with the plea that it was 
a prophet of the Lord with whom he would con- 
verse, he appeals to the powers of darkness. 

He asks his companions "if they knew of any 
surviving dealer with demons." Yes, they know 
of one, proof doubtless, that they had been in 
the habit of consulting her themselves, and in the 
shelter of the night Saul goes forth with two 
of them to a slope of Mount Hermon. 

Entering into the cavern, dimly lighted by a 
fire of wood, and addressing the medium, he says: 
"I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, 
and bring me him up whom I shall name unto 
thee." 



Spiritism in Israel and Judah 83 

The medium, suspicious at first, is re-assured by 
an oath that no harm would befall her, and being 
requested to call up Samuel commenced her prepar- 
ations. 

But the usual procedure is cut short by a sudden 
interference, and the medium is affrighted by her 
discovery, communicated through the familiar 
spirit no doubt, that her inquirer is the king; and 
still more affrighted by the apparition of a being 
with whom she had neither part nor lot. The ex- 
planation of this last remark is that the real Samuel 
had appeared instead of the personation which the 
medium had expected, the real Samuel, whom God, 
in wrath, had sent up as the bearer of a fearful 
message of doom to the wicked king (i Samuel 
XXVIII).* 

The rest of the story we need not follow. The 
words of Samuel, the despair of Saul, his return 
to camp, his suicidal death the next day, and very 
especially the declaration in I Chron. X. 13, that 
he "died for his transgression which he committed 
against the Lord, * * * and for asking coun- 
sel of one that had a familiar spirit to inquire 
of it." 

The view of Pember, thus quoted, that it was 
indeed the real Samuel who came up, and not a 
personated Samuel, is that of the present writer 



*Pember , s, Earth's Earliest Ages. 



84 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

also, (Synthetic Studies page, 43, Christian Work- 
er's Commentary, page 166). 

But it is necessary to emphasize the point that 
it was not the witch of Endor who brought up 
Samuel. Matters got out of her hands apparently, 
as indicated in her screams. God brought up 
Samuel, and the fact that Saul saw and spoke di- 
rectly to him is another feature which is uncom- 
mon in Spiritistic lore. 

The incident, therefore, is a special one, and af- 
fords no evidence as to the genuineness of other 
communications purporting to come from indi- 
viduals who have left this world. It is no proof 
whatever that the spirit of any particular indi- 
vidual can be summoned by a medium or 'control', 
or that the spirits which respond are those of the 
individuals they purport to be. (The Vital Choice : 
Endor or Calvary.) 

And yet it is only right to say that there is an- 
other view to be taken of this transaction. It is 
one that gives no more comfort, perhaps not even 
as much, to the votaries of Spiritism, and would 
not be mentioned here at all, except as a matter 
of additional interest. 

The Rev. William H. Clagett in his brochure, 
"Modern Spiritualism Exposed," presents it cog- 
ently in speaking of the occurrence as the first 
seance of which the world has any record. 

That record plainly shows, he says, that this 
spirit was not Samuel's. He thinks it came from 



Spiritism in Israel and Judah 85 

the wrong direction, "up" not down. Again the 
spirit says, "Why hast thou disquieted me?" He 
does not think that any of God's servants could 
be disquieted by a witch. Still further, the spirit 
says, "Tomorrow, thou shalt be with me." Samuel 
was a saved man, Saul a lost man, and between 
the two a great impassable gulf was fixed. How 
could Saul be with Samuel? 

Furthermore, Dr. Clagett believes that if this 
spirit had been Samuel he would have told Saul tq 
repent and call upon God, instead of which he 
makes an argument to drive Saul to despair, de- 
claring that God had departed from him and be- 
come his enemy, and that he would be defeated 
and slain, etc. 

Notwithstanding what Dr. Clagett says how- 
ever, and though there are others who agree with 
him, the simple reading of the record impresses 
one that the real Samuel is before us. 

An answer to one of Dr. Clagett's objections, 
and the most serious one, is ready. The Jews re- 
garded the place of the dead as composed of two 
realms, one for the righteous and one for the 
unrighteous. Tomorrow Saul might have been 
with Samuel in that he was in the realm of the 
dead, and yet not with him in the sense that he 
was in the company of the righteous dead. 

Yet omitting this particular factor, we have here 
indeed, as Dr. Clagett says, a picture of modern 
Spiritism drawn by the finger of God three 



86 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

thousand years ago. The whole thing is laid bare 
before us, the medium and her character, the sup- 
posed "control", the circle, Saul and two men with 
him, the time, night, the claim, "whom shall I 
bring up?", the supposed materialization, and the 
same arrangement of things in the house, and the 
same vagueness and uncanniness about the whole 
proceeding. 

Ill 

After the period of Saul little is said of Spirit- 
ism in Israel until we reach the defection of Baal- 
worship in the time of King Ahab and the prophet 
Elijah (i Kings XVII-XIX) ; where the sup- 
position is a reasonable one that the false prophets 
were mediums inspired by the agents of Satan. 

For this cause, let the reader be duly impressed 
with the awful story in I Kings XXII, especially 
verses 20-23, where a lying spirit is permitted, in 
Divine judgment, to seduce the king so that he is 
led away to a disgraceful death. 

Later comes the story of Naaman the leper (2 
Kings V), who was indignant because God's serv- 
ant Elisha did not "wave his hand over the place 
and recover the leper." Was he thinking of the 
mesmeric healing of the pagan priests? If so, it 
enables us to appreciate why Elisha bade him in- 
stead, to go "wash in Jordan seven times and thy 
flesh shall come again to thee and thou shalt be 
clean." 



Spiritism in Israel and Juclah 87 

These are instances of the coupling of sorcery 
and idolatry in the history of the ten tribes, but 
the same is found in Judah too. Was it in Jotham 
or Ahaz' day, that Israel cried to Jehovah: 
"Therefore Thou hast forsaken Thy people, the 
house of Jacob, because they be replenished from 
the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines" 
(II. 6)? 

When a century afterwards, Manasseh is on 
the throne, "he did that which was evil in the sight 
of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen 
whom the Lord cast out before the children of 
Israel. * * * And he made his son to pass 
through the fire, and observed times, and used 
enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and 
wizards" (2 Kings XXI). 

In consequence of these practices there follows 
a fearful prophecy of woe. Such evil would be 
brought on Jerusalem and Judah as would cause 
the ears of him that heard of it to tingle. The 
city would be wiped "as a man wipeth a dish, wip- 
ing it and turning it upside down." Moreover 
Manasseh himself was permitted of God to be 
taken in chains by the king of Assyria and carried 
to Babylon. 

Happily however, Manasseh offers an answer 
to the question as to whether it is ever possible 
for a soul entangled in Spiritism to be delivered 
and restored, for we read in 2 Chronicles XXIII. 
12, 13, that when he was in affliction he besought 



88 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly 
before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto 
Him. As a result he was heard of Him Who 
brought him again to Jerusalem into his Kingdom. 
"Then Manasseh knew that the Lord He was 
God." 

Manasseh's godly successor, Josiah, put away 
the abominations and removed the mediums from 
Judah, but they soon were permitted to return 
alas! as we judge by Jeremiah's denunciation of 
them up to the very moment almost of the Baby- 
lonian captivity. 

"Hearken not ye to your prophets," he exclaims, 
"nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor 
to your mesmerizers, nor to your enchanters, which 
speak unto you, saying, ye shall not serve the king 
of Babylon. For they prophesy a lie unto you, 
to remove you far from your land, and that I 
should drive you out, and ye should perish" 
(XXVII. 9, 10). 

The Jews learned many things as the result of 
their Babylonian captivity, but one thing they did 
not learn, and that was to put the false prophets 
and the diviners away from them forever. We 
are assured of this because of the warnings they 
receive in the post-captivity prophets. 

It is clear also from the same source, that Spirit- 
ism will prevail among them when they return in 
unbelief to their own land in the day that is yet 
ahead. But when their King comes a second time 



Spiritism in Israel and Judah 89 

to Zion then will He turn ungodliness away from 
Jacob, and they shall be freed forever from its 
curse. "It shall come to pass in that day, saith 
the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off the name of 
the idols out of the land, and they shall no more 
be remembered; and also I will cause the prophets 
and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land" 
(Zechariah XIII. 2). 



IX 



EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE 
BLACK ART 



SO far as the Gospels are concerned, perhaps 
as much has been said already as our pres- 
ent treatment of the subject will permit. See 
the preceding chapters on "Satan — His Origin, 
History and Doom," and "Angels and Demons." 
But there is much in the Acts and the Epistles, and 
especially in the book of Revelation, that calls for 
particular attention. 

Conybeare and Howson, and more recently, Sir 
William Ramsay* are good authority for saying 
that a marked fact in the society of paganism dur- 
ing the period covered by the Acts was the in- 
fluence of magicians and soothsayers. 

They were extraordinarily numerous the latter 
tells us, there being but few cities in the Greeco- 



*The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness 
of the New Testament. 

90 



Early Christianity 91 

Roman world that did not possess several of them 
who catered to a large part of ordinary society. 
The more educated and thoughtful of the people 
believed them to be disreputable and maleficent 
and they warned young people against them, but 
this only went to prove their belief in the power 
they could exert. 

And just as today, the people in those days re- 
sorted to magicians in the hope of procuring what 
they were unwilling to seek, or what they could not 
obtain, through prayer and acts of a purely re- 
ligious character. 

Religion was open and fair, but they preferred 
darkness and secrecy. Lovers sought charms or 
the means of enslaving the minds and possessing 
the persons of those they desired. Others sought 
the recovery of lost property, the cure of disease, 
business success or any of the thousand and one 
things that humanity covets. "There was a wide- 
spread and deep-seated feeling in the pagan mind, 
that the divine power was always ready and even 
desirous to communicate its will to men," and that 
the signs revealing that intention were visible all 
about for those who had eyes to see, i.e., through 
divination; or would be revealed to men through 
prophecy, i.e., oracles located at certain places 
which were ever ready to serve in that capacity for 
a given fee. 

There was no class of opponents, Sir William 
assures us, with whom the earliest Christian apos- 



92 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

ties and missionaries were brought into collision 
so frequently, and whose antagonism was so ob- 
stinate and determined as the magicians. 

At Samaria, at Paphos, at Philippi, and re- 
peatedly at Ephesus, wizards of various kinds meet 
and are overcome by Peter and Paul. They had 
power, but the apostles are exhibited as always pos- 
sessing more power. 

Not that this is the only explanation of the at- 
tention given to such matters by the inspired his- 
torian, but rather is it for the purpose of refuting 
an accusation commonly brought against the 
Christians. The accusation was that they also, 
like the wizards and magicians, were maleficent 
and haters of the human race, practising secret 
rites and abominable hidden crimes ( I Peter II. 
12) . u There is no presbyter of the Christians that 
is not an astrologer, a diviner and a professional 
carer for people's physical condition," is the tes- 
timony of the supposed letter of Emperor Had- 
rian to a Roman Consul, A.D. 134. 

We thus have a point of similarity with the way 
in which spiritists of today compare their doings 
and their beliefs with Christ and the Christians of 
the first and second centuries. As we have pre- 
viously pointed out, they commit the blasphemy 
of speaking of Christ as a Master Medium, and 
affirm that the phenomena of the seances are not 
different in origin, in character and in their objec- 
tive from the marvels which Christians know to 



Early Christianity 93 

have been wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit 
at the hands of the first disciples. 

Whereas the authorities of that day sought to 
dishonor those marvels by reducing them to the 
level of unlawful arts, so the practitioners of those 
arts today are seeking to elevate them to the plane 
of the holy and divine religion of Jesus Christ. 



II 



As we come to consider the record of the Acts, 
let the reader refresh his recollection by a perusal 
of the text. 

Take the story of Simon Magus for example, 
VIII. 5-24. Still following Ramsay who has an 
original way of looking at the matter, it is to be 
borne in mind that Simon was not an impostor or 
a quack, just as we have seen that some, a very 
few perhaps, of the modern mediums are not to 
be so designated. He possessed real power, as 
do some of these, though it may be of a different 
kind from that which he possessed. 

The Samaritans said, "This man is that power 
of God, which is called Great" (R.V.). "Power" 
(Greek, dunamis) was what the pagan devotees 
worshipped as divine. "Great" also had a strong 
religious characteristic. Hence in Simon they 
thought they had "an epiphany of that Supreme 
power of which even the *ods themselves are only 
partial embodiments." 



94 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

But Simon saw in Philip greater and different 
power from any that he possessed. The powers of 
this world always recognize the true power of 
God (James II. 19). Struck with astonishment 
at the position and influence acquired by Philip, he 
joined his company to learn more about it; and 
on discovering through Peter and John that it was 
to be procured and even passed on to others by 
the laying on of hands, he would pay for it if it 
could be bought. 

As Ramsay carefully notes, in this first recorded 
collision with a practiser of magic arts, the stress 
is laid on his incapacity to understand the nature 
and character of the Christian truth. There is an 
essential antagonism between him and it, just as 
there is today between the exponents and the vot- 
aries of revived Spiritism and they who are truly 
witnessing for Jesus Christ. We class Simon with 
Spiritists, because "in such phenomena as that of 
Spiritism lay the powers of such magicians." 

As a matter of fact not only is Simon's proposal 
rejected by the Apostles, and with indignation and 
contempt, but Simon himself is rejected. 

And it was necessary thus to give strong expres- 
sion to this antagonism on the first occasion, be- 
cause of the analogy between certain phenomena 
of the magician and those of Christianity on some 
occasions. Take the descent of the Holy Spirit 
on the waiting and praying disciples, already men- 
tioned, which took place on the day of Pentecost. 



Early Christianity 95 

The Spiritists of today do not hesitate to class 
that sacred scene with a modern spiritist seance — 
the disciples together with one accord, the sound 
of the rushing mighty wind filling the house, the 
appearance of cloven tongues ! 

It is characteristic of Luke's method of correct- 
ing this erroneous idea in the book of Acts, that 
he does not do so by obtruding any opinion or 
judgment of his own, but simply by setting forth 
the acts and words of the heaven-endued and 
heaven-guided apostles, which speak for them- 
selves. Happy are we if, learned in the contents 
of Holy Writ, we are able to do the same against 
the spiritists of today, and thus, if it please God, 
deliver some who, without knowing it, are like 
Simon, "in the gall of bitterness and in the bond 
of iniquity." 



Ill 



From the eighth chapter of the Acts, let the 
reader pass if he will to the thirteenth and to the 
story of "Elymas the Sorcerer." 

Following further the author we have named, 
here is the only case in the New Testament in 
which the natural antagonism between the Chris- 
tian teacher and the magician is carried to a direct 
conflict and trial of strength. Bar-Jesus (Arabic, 
Ely mas) pits himself against Paul and forthwith 
his strength is withered. "The power of the Holy 



96 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

Spirit, looking through the eyes of Paul, pierces 
him to the soul and temporarily paralyses the ner- 
vous system so far as vision is concerned"; or to 
quote the inspired and less round-about language 
of the Bible itself, "Immediately there fell on him 
a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking 
some one to lead him by the hand." 

It is pertinent to observe that Sergius Paulus, 
the Roman deputy or pro-consul in this case, is 
described as u a prudent man," i.e., a man of under- 
standing. His prudence and understanding were 
exhibited surely, in calling for Barnabas and Saul 
that he might hear the Word of God; and after- 
wards in judging that the results in the case of the 
false prophet who withstood them, were sufficient 
to accredit the truth of their testimony. "When 
he saw what was done, he believed, being aston- 
ished at the doctrine of the Lord." 

Would to God that some of those now coming 
under the power of the false teaching of mod- 
ern Spiritism were governed by a like prudence, 
especially when we reflect that Paul, under the im- 
pulse of the Spirit of God, rebuked this sorcerer 
as one who was "full of all subtility and mischief," 
a "child of the devil," and an "enemy of all right- 
eousness" who was perverting "the right way of 
the Lord." 

It intensifies the realism of this transaction to 
know that Sir William Ramsay has been able to 
identify this deputy by the monuments of Asia 



Early Christianity 97 

Minor, and also to corroborate in a most fascin- 
ating way the allusion to his conversion to the 
Christian religion. 



IV 



Leaving the story of Bar-Jesus we come to that 
of the "damsel possessed with a spirit of divina- 
tion" in Acts XVI. 

A maid having "a spirit, a Python" is the way 
we find it in the margin of the Revised Version. 
The King James' Version is more of a comment 
than a translation, and destroys the instruction 
which the passage was intended to give. That in- 
struction is important as proving the supernatural 
character of the influences that formed and guided 
Paganism. 

As Benjamin Wills Newton says in "Reflections 
on the Character and Spread of Spiritualism," this 
"damsel" was what men now call a medium, an 
intermediary between themselves and the powers 
of darkness — a link connecting with hell whose 
fires shall never be quenched (Mark IX. 43-48). 
She had the spirit of "Pytho" that guided the Del- 
phic oracle, and that oracle was not human, but 
superhuman and Satanic. 

"This authoritative connection of Spiritualism 
with the ancient gods," says Pember, "is of pe- 
culiar importance at a time when Apollo, the god 
of Delphi, is re-appearing as a mighty angelic ex- 



98 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

istence in poems which claim to be demoniacally 
inspired." 

It is thus in part, that A. T. Schofield, M.D., 
the London neurologist and author, describes this 
scene: 

"Look at the setting of the story. This was 
the first entry of Christianity into Europe, the most 
momentous event in its history! 

"Who could discern the mighty importance of 
the landing of these three obscure travellers? Only 
two — God and the Prince of Darkness! Mere 
men were busy with weightier affairs — the gossip 
of the court at Rome, the rising influence of 
Greece, and the like; and yet through the power 
of the message of these three men both Empires 
were soon to fall beneath th sway of the crucified 
Nazarene! The Prince of Darkness was an un- 
seen witness of the whole occurrence, and his plans 
were soon made. 

"Probably the very next day, on their way to 
the river, his emissary, suitably disguised as an 
'angel of light' met them, and gave the apostle a 
most hearty and unexpected welcome. She evi- 
dently knew all about their arrival and their gos- 
pel, and the part in the drama she had to play. 

"Ancient Spiritism was too wise to seek to dis- 
credit the Christian gospel, after the fashion of 
the modern variety. On the contrary, she lauded 
it to the skies for days, declaring it to be 'the way 
of salvation,' and thus posed as another and a 



Early Christianity 99 

greater 'Lydia' — the true and the false were side 
by side. And yet the apostle was not taken in! 
(for the spiritual man 'discerneth all things' (i 
Cor. II. 15). 

"How different in these times! Nowadays, if 
the name of God is but so much as heard at a 
seance, even Christians feel it is all right. While, 
if one of the 'soothsayers' lauded the tenets of the 
Christian faith after the fashion of this maid, 
London would ring with the news the next day as 
proof of the godliness of Modern Spiritism! 

"It is written that the apostle was 'sore 
troubled,' and no wonder, with this perplexing 
masterpiece of the enemy, masquerading before 
him and undeniably preaching day after day the 
truth of God! 

"But 'in vain is the net spread in the sight of 
any bird,' and Paul, instructed by the Holy Spirit 
and 'discerning all things,' like his Master before 
him (Mark I. 25, 34), refused praise from the 
unclean source. He saw clearly the devil that 'pos- 
sessed' this pseudo-evangelist, and said to it, 'I 
charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come 
out of her.' He never addressed one word to the 
poor victim, but spoke to the real power within 
her. 

"Are not these things written for our instruc- 
tion? And is there one single soul who reads 
these lines so blind as not to see the parallel, or so 
deaf as not to hear the warning?" 



100 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 



One more incident from the Acts will suffice, 
the story of the Dhma worshippers at Ephesus, 
recorded in the nineteenth chapter. 

Ephesus was renowned throughout the world 
for the worship of Diana and the practice of 
magic. Mysterious symbols engraved on the im- 
age of the goddess were regarded as a charm when 
pronounced, and their study was an elaborate sci- 
ence taught in books numerous and costly. 

This circumstance throws light on the peculiar 
character of the miracles wrought by Paul in that 
city, though we are not to suppose that the apostles 
were always able to work miracles at will, any 
more than we know that their miracles were not 
always the same. 

Here he was in the face of magicians like Moses 
and Aaron in Egypt, and it is expressly said that 
his miracles were "special" or extraordinary (Acts 
XIX. n). 

A profound effect was produced on those who 
practised curious arts in the city, and especially 
certain travelling exorcists who, influenced by what 
they had seen and heard in Paul's work, and judg- 
ing also by precedent in the case of the Diana 
worship, supposed that the Name of Jesus acted 
as a charm, and attempted by such means to cast 
put evil spirits as the Apostle had done. "But He 



Early Christianity 101 

to whom demons were subject and Who had given 
to His servants power and authority over them 
(Luke IX. i) had shame and terror in store for 
those who thus presumed to take His holy Name 
in vain." 

Among those who thus presumed, "were seven 
sons of one Sceva, a Jew," "and the man in whom 
the evil spirit was, leaped on them so that they 
fled out of the house naked and wounded." 

The news spread, and fear fell on the people 
"and the Name of the Lord Jesus was magnified," 
by their confession of sin and the forsaking of 
their evil ways, even to the extent in many cases 
of the burning of their costly books whose loss 
amounted to as much as ten thousand dollars of 
our money. 

"So mightily grew the Word of God and pre- 
vailed" (XIX. 20). 



X 

TEACHING OF THE PAULINE EPISTLES 

THE previous chapter showed us something 
of the obstinate and determined antagonism 
of the spiritists, the sorcerers and the ma- 
gicians toward the Christian apostles. But the 
latter met it by their inspired writings, as well as 
by their spoken words and the wonders and signs 
they wrought in the power of the Holy Spirit. 



One of the first in the order of the books of the 
New Testament and one of the best known of the 
written words of Paul, is that in the tenth chapter 
of his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he 
says: 

"The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to 
demons and not to God; and I would not that ye should have 
fellowship with demons. 

"Ye can not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of 
demons; ye can not be partakers of the Lord's table, and the 
table of demons. 

"Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger 
than He?" 

102 



The Apostolic Epistles 103 

The actual existence of demons is here implied 
if not positively stated, as well as their actual wor- 
ship by the benighted pagans. But what is more 
to the point so far as Christian believers are con- 
cerned, is the temptation to affiliate w T ith such 
worshippers, an affiliation cutting off from com- 
munication with the true God. 

And more than that, it not only severs com- 
munion, but exposes believers to the divine chas- 
tisement as implied in the words, "Do we provoke 
the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?" 
That is, will we attempt to resist His will and 
openly bring His honor into contempt? 

The words denote the strong displeasure in con- 
sequence of adulterous love. The fiercest of all 
human passions is used to illustrate the hatred of 
God towards idolatry, and spiritist seances come 
dangerously near idolatry. 

There is a curious passage in the eleventh chap- 
ter of the same epistle which has puzzled com- 
mentators. It is where Paul is instructing women 
how to behave themselves in the assemblies of 
worship : 

"Neither was the man created for the woman; but the 
woman for the man. 

"For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head 
because of the angels/' 

One of the commentators consulted in the 
preparation of this chapter, added, "for some re- 



104 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

markable Oriental illustrations of the interpreta- 
tion that evil angels are here meant, see Dean 
Stanley on this verse. " 

An examination of Dean Stanley, with whose 
commentary the present writer had not previously 
been particularly acquainted, revealed that he 
favored the view of Kurtz, Maitland, Fleming 
and others as to the Angel interpretation of Gen- 
esis VI. referred to in previous chapters; and that 
he connected this admonition of Paul with the ex- 
traordinary event there named. 

His words, in part, follow, and are given some- 
what at length because of their bearing on what 
has gone before: 

"The apostle had dwelt on the necessity of this subordina- 
tion, as shown in all the passages in the early chapters of 
Genesis, where the relation of the sexes is described, viz. Gen. 
1.26, ii. 18, 23, iii. 16. 

"The mention of these passages may have carried on his 
thoughts to the next and only kindred passage in Gen. vi. 2, 4, 
in which those relations are described as subverted by the 
union of the daughters of men with the sons of God, — in the 
version of the LXX. the angels, 

"In this case the sense would be 'In this subordination of 
the woman to man, we find the reason of the custom, which, 
in consequence of the sin of the angels, enjoins that the woman 
ought not to part with the sign that she is subject, not to them, 
but to her husband. The authority of the husband is, as it 
were, enthroned visibly upon her head, in token that she belongs 
to him alone, and that she owes no allegiance to any one 
besides, not even to the angels who stand before the throne 
of God/ 

"The 'fall of the angels' thus spoken of is the same as that 
indicated in Jude 6, 2 Pet. ii. 4, where the context shows that 



The Apostolic Epistles 105 

the fall there intended is supposed to be at the time not of 
the creation, but of the Deluge, not from pride but lust. 

"It is possible that, if the words 'on account of the angels' 
be so taken, the word 'power' might be understood, not as the 
sign of the husband's power over the woman, but (in the 
sense most agreeable to the usage of the word itself) as the 
sign of the power or dignity of the woman over herself, pro- 
jecting her from the intrusion of spirits, whether good or evil. 
In that case compare its use in vii. 37. 

"Finally, we must ask why a train of argument, otherwise 
simple, should be thus abruptly interrupted by allusions diffi- 
cult in themselves, and rendered still more so by their con- 
ciseness? 

"The most natural explanation seems to be that he was led 
by a train of association familiar to his readers, but lost to us. 
Such is the allusion in 2 Thess. ii. 5, 6, 'Remember ye not, 
that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things ? And 
now ye know what withholdeth/ etc. 

"An argument in their letter, a conversation, a custom to 
which he had before alluded, would account not only for the 
introduction of the passage, but for allusions which, as ad- 
dressed merely to a local or transitory occasion, might well 
be couched in terms so obscure as to forbid in effect, if not 
in design, any certain or permanent inference from them for 
future ages. 

"The difficulty of the text is, in fact, the safeguard against 
its misuse." 

This church to which it was necessary to say 
so much about evil spirits, was one which, perhaps 
more than any other, had abused the spiritual 
gifts bestowed upon it by the Holy Spirit for the 
propagation of the Gospel. Hence the large place 
given to spiritual gifts in this epistle, covering chap- 
ters XII-XIV. 

These chapters challenge the most prayerful 



106 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

consideration in connection with our theme, touch- 
ing as they do, the source of such gifts (XII. 4-6) ; 
their nature (7-1 1) ; their object and use (12-31); 
the cause of their abuse (XIII. 1-13) ; the prefer- 
ence among them, and why (XIV. 1-25) ; the man- 
ner in which they are to be publicly exercised 
(26-35) ; and indeed everything else required for 
their wise and holy employment in the blessing 
of men and the extension of the knowledge of the 
true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. 



II 



Galatians comes next in order after Corinthians 
with its warning against idolatry and sorcery (V. 
20) placing them alongside of adultery, fornica- 
tion and all uncleanness in the catalogue of the 
works of the flesh. "Idolatry is the open recog- 
nition of false gods," says Lightfoot, "and sor- 
cery the secret tampering with the powers of evil." 
They are like the two halves of one whole. "They 
which do (practice R.V.) such things," the apostle 
admonishes, "shall not inherit the Kingdom of 
God" (21). 

It is not said, "they that do such things daily," 
for even though one does any such thing even only 
once, voluntarily, he forfeits the the kingdom of 
God as long as he remains under the dominion of 
that work of the flesh. — Starke. 



The Apostolic Epistles 107 

A plainer and more fearful notice of danger to 
the necromancers of the present day it would be 
impossible to put into words. 



Ill 



Paul's letter to the Ephesians follows with a 
revelation of the conflict in which Christian believ- 
ers are engaged in this matter, together with a 
description of the protection to be taken and the 
weapon to be used for victory and the assurance 
of its attainment if the command be obeyed. 

Beginning with the tenth verse of the sixth chap- 
ter, he says : 

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the 

power of His might. 

"Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to 
stand against the wiles of the devil. 

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the dark- 
less of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." 

"Wrestle" indicates a personal encounter, a con- 
test of life and death. But it is not one with 
"flesh and blood"; it is not against humanity 
viewed in its palpable characteristics that we 
wrestle, but with spirits high in rank and position. 
As Dr. Eadie says, "it is no vulgar herd of fiends 
we encounter, but such of them as are darkly emi- 
nent in place and dignity." 

Moreover they are "the rulers of the darkness 



108 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

of this world," those which in some way, and for 
some reason, "have acquired a special domination 
on earth, out of which they are loath to be dis- 
lodged/' This "darkness," to quote him further, 
is that "spiritual obscurity which so painfully en- 
virons the church — that zone which surrounds an 
unbelieving world with an ominous and lowering 
shadow." No wonder we should take unto us 
"the whole armour of God," not a part, but the 
whole. 

Dropping the figures which Paul uses in the 
subsequent verses, the protection and the weapon 
that he names and which we all need, are truth, 
righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the "Word of 
God and prayer. 

"Truth" here is subjective, it is "the assured 
conviction that we believe and that it is God's 
truth that we believe." The intimate dealing of 
truth with the soul, "the affections and judgment 
braced up to Christ and the things of Christ." 

The "righteousness" also is subjective. It is not 
the imputed righteousness of Christ, and which is 
presupposed as the possession of the believer, but 
the practical every day righteousness growing out 
of it, the "good conscience" which Peter repeatedly 
urges upon those to whom he writes. 

The same is true of "peace". It is peace as an 
experience, the effect of maintaining a good con- 
science. The Christian warrior moves as the bat- 
tle shifts, and his continued preparedness for ac- 



The Apostolic Epistles 109 

tlon, his feet shod, depends on that serenity of 
heart which nothing perplexes or disconcerts. 

"Faith" in God and His grace is needed also 
to "guard the mind from aberration and despond- 
ency, and ward off the assaults that are made 
upon it." 

"Salvation" in this instance means the conscious 
possession, the knowledge of safety, the conviction 
of pardon and sanctification. He who thus knows 
that he has passed from death unto life is one 
whose "head is covered in the day of battle." 

As "the helmet of salvation" crowns the various 
parts of the armor, so there comes after it no 
reference to any further means of defence, which 
is quite complete, but a revelation of the instru- 
ment of offensive energy against the adversary, 
"the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of 
God." 

And then the hidden spring of power without 
which nothing avails, "praying always." But al- 
ways in the Spirit, i.e. the Holy Spirit, in His ex- 
citing and assisting influence (Romans VIII. 26, 
Jude 20). "And watching thereunto," watching 
for these very things thus specified to be realized 
in us, and in "all the saints." 



IV 



We pause in Colossians to point out its teach- 
ing concerning evil spirits in their relation to the 



110 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

Person and work of Christ in our redemption 
(chapter II. 13-15). 

We who were "dead in trespasses and sins" have 
been quickened together with Him Who blotted 
out the handwriting of ordinances that was against 
us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His 
Cross ; 

"And having spoiled principalities and powers He made a 
show of them openly, triumphing over them in it", 

i.e. in His cross. 

Nicholson (Oneness With Christ) renders it: 
"Stripping off and away from Himself the prin- 
cipalities and powers, He made a show of them 
boldly, leading them in triumph in it." 

The evil principalities and powers are here 
meant of course, the same as in Ephesians VI. 12. 
They seized on Christ's human nature, which, 
though without sin, had infirmities, as we saw il- 
lustrated in the wilderness temptation, and the 
agony of Gethsemane as well as Calvary. But 
His victory was complete, for the powers of evil 
which had thus clung to Him were turned off and 
cast away forever by His death and resurrection. 

And yet there is a higher or, if you please, a 
deeper view to be taken of this truth. The evil 
principalities and powers attacked our Lord on 
His spiritual side as well. 

Satan did this in the wilderness, in seeking to 
keep Him from the cross by offering Him "the 



The Apostolic Epistles 111 

kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" if 
he would fall down and worship him (Matthew 
IV) . And the same temptation came to Him from 
the same source at other times and in other ways. 
When Peter sought to dissuade Him from going 
up to Jerusalem to be killed was such a time (Mat- 
thew XVI. 21), and when the Greeks desired to 
see Him at the feast, and learning of it, He ex- 
claimed, "Now is My soul troubled, and what shall 
I say? Father, save me from this hour." John 
XII. 27.) 

But He was not rebellious, neither turned He 
away backward. He set His face like a flint and 
He knew that He should not be ashamed (Isa. L) . 
He died, but He arose again. So pleasing to His 
Father was the substitution of Himself for sin- 
ners and so absolute and glorious His defeat of 
the dire purposes of Satan, sin, death and all the 
powers of darkness, that the cross itself became 
the victor's car. 

To quote Bishop Wilson in his Lectures on 
Colossians, 

"At the very moment when Satan and the Jews 
conceived that they had accomplished their hellish 
purpose; when Christ and His new religion seemed 
crushed at a blow ; when the efforts of the evil one 
which had succeeded against the first Adam ap- 
peared to succeed against the Second Adam; when 
the sun veiled in darkness might be thought to 
symbolize the destruction of man's expectations 



112 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

of redemption excited during 4,000 years — at that 
very instant, behold the triumph ! 

"The law fulfilled; God's moral government 
vindicated; death robbed of its prey; Satan de- 
throned from his usurped position; principalities 
and powers led in procession as captives, and a 
show openly made of them before a rescued 
world!" 

Where, then, are the inventions and follies of 
men? Where the worship of principalities and 
powers? Do not spiritists see the peril of the 
company they keep, and do not Christians rejoice 
in the comfort and protection of that Mighty One 
on Whom help has been laid, and under the 
shadow of Whose wings they have come to trust? 



K 



In his first epistle to the Thessalonians (II. 18), 
Paul charges the devil by name as the opposer of 
his work, in a passage parallel to that of the in- 
spired Chronicler u and Satan stood up against 
Israel" (I Chron. XXI. 1). 

The Apostle had endeavored to go back from 
Athens to visit the afflicted brethren at Thessa- 
lonica, "but Satan hindered us." The hindrance 
exhibits itself to the reader of Acts 17 as the per- 
secuting Jews, but the spiritually illumined Apostle 
sees not "flesh and blood," but "the rulers of the 
darkness of this world," Satan and the evil angels 



The Apostolic Epistles 113 

whom he directs. He also was the tempter of 
the Thessalonian Christians themselves, in whom, 
because of their tribulation, there was danger that 
Paul's labor might be in vain. 

This leads up to the larger consideration of the 
occult powers in the second epistle, where at the 
second chapter, the writer is dealing with the apos- 
tasy already at work in the Church, and the de- 
velopment of that wicked or lawless one (the 
Antichrist). 

This being is identified as one 

"Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all 
power, and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivable- 
ness of unrighteousness in them that are perishing because 
they received not the love of the truth, that they might be 
saved." 

These "lying wonders" are so called, not be- 
cause they are not real wonders which Satan and 
his emissaries are able to do, but because they are 
done in the interest of and to bolster up a lie. 
Their seriousness lies in the fact that they are 
wrought "with all deceit of unrighteousness." But 
note that it is only "them that are perishing" 
(R.V.) on whom the deceit works, them that have 
"not the love of the truth that they might be 
saved." 

The "truth" means of course, the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, and as the present writer has sought to 
show in his Antidote to Christian Science, there 



114 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

is a difference between receiving the truth and 
receiving the love of it. A man who marries a 
woman without loving her is soon seeking a di- 
vorce, and he who knows the truth in his head, 
but has never given it lodgment in his heart, is not 
difficult to lead into error. 

But the momentous feature of this is that, as 
the subsequent verses in the chapter show, because 
men receive not the love of the truth God sends 
upon them as a judgment, a "working of error," 
a "strong delusion that they should believe a lie." 
It is not merely that God permits such a delusion 
to come upon them, but that He sends it as the 
mighty act of a Judge punishing evil by evil. 

Not to believe the truth of the gospel is sin, and 
not to receive the love of it after knowing it is 
still deeper sin; but to be obliged to believe a lie 
in consequence of it is retribution unspeakable. 
The Greek in this case might be translated "THE 
lie," as the idea is not merely a single lie, but the 
entire force of lies, the entire element of the devil- 
ish perversion of all truth (Auberlen in loco). 



VI 



The last of the Pauline utterances on the sub- 
ject of which we shall now treat is in I Timothy 
IV., and is distinguished from all the preceding 
as a prediction of the increase of demoniacal influ- 
ence in the latter days, upon which many students 



The Apostolic Epistles 115 

of the Bible consider that we are now entering. 
The passage is part of that which concludes the 
preceding chapter, and we quote it with that con- 
text: 

"And, without controversy, great is the mystery of godli- 
ness; God (or 'He, Who', R.V.) was manifest in the flesh, 
justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gen- 
tiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. 

"Now (or 'But', R.V.) the Spirit speaketh expressly that 
in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving 
heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons; 

"Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared 
with a hot iron; 

"Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from 
meats, which God hath created to be received with thanks- 
giving of them which believe and know the truth." 

The key to the interpretation of this remark- 
able passage is the words, "depart from the faith." 
The object, or more properly, the essence of the 
faith is that great Mystery of the Lord Jesus 
Christ spoken of in the first verse quoted, and 
which is at once the source and the support of all 
real godliness. 

The departure from the faith, the apostasy as 
it is described in II. Thessalonians 2, is to com- 
mence with a waning faith in Christ, His Person 
and His work, as set forth in the Scriptures. As 
Pember says, "it is not necessarily a total denial 
of Him, but it begins with incredulity as to the 
miraculous circumstances of His past advent, and 
so gradually obscures the only source and centre of 



116 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

every godly aspiration." In other words, it is pre- 
cisely what we are witnessing today throughout 
Christendom, and which furnishes a reason, in 
part, for believing that these are the "latter 
times." 

The "latter times" do not mean the end of the 
world by any means, but the end of the present 
age, or dispensation, when God has been dealing 
in grace with sinners, and offering them a free sal- 
vation through His Son. 

"The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter 
times some shall depart from the faith." The 
Holy Spirit is meant in this case, Who spoke ex- 
pressly, or plainly, in the Old Testament prophets, 
through Jesus Christ Himself, and also by Paul 
(Daniel VII. 25; VIII. 23; Matthew XXIV. 11- 
24; 2 Thess. II. 3). 

What the Spirit says is that in the latter times 
some will "depart from the faith giving heed to 
seducing spirits and doctrines of demons." These 
"spirits" would be working in and through the 
heretical teachers, and their doctrine, or teaching, 
would be that of demons, Satan's ministers. 

They would speak "lies in hypocrisy" or through 
the hypocrisy of lying teachers, the feigned sanc- 
tity of the seducers or deceivers, "having their own 
conscience seared." That is to say, "austerity 
would gain for them a show of sanctity while 
preaching false doctrine," they would professedly 
be leading others to holiness while their own con- 



The Apostolic Epistles 117 

science was defiled. It would be seared as witK 
a hot iron, cauterized, the effect of which is to 
produce insensibility. 

In the words of Canon Faussett, "sensuality 
leads to false spiritualism/' hence these hypocrit- 
ical teachers would make moral perfection con- 
sist in abstinence from outward things, chiefly two, 
"forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain 
from meats." 

"From these last particulars," says Pember, 
"many have endeavored to fasten this prophecy 
upon the Church of Rome, because she forbids her 
priests to marry, and has set apart days for fast- 
ing. But Paul teaches that those of whom he 
speaks would receive their doctrines from wander- 
ing spirits, for the word "seducing" is capable of 
that rendering (compare Job I. 7; II. 2; Matthew 

XII. 43)-" 

Moreover the prohibition of marriage in this 
case is general, not limited to "priests" or Chris- 
tian ministers, apparently an entire repudiation of 
God's ordinance; while the command to abstain 
from meats, likewise means a total, not an occa- 
sional or periodical, abstinence from certain kinds 
of food, of which more later on. 

Meanwhile, a further remark of Canon Faus- 
sett is pertinent, viz., that "Rome's Judaizing ele- 
ments will ultimately be combined with the open, 
worldly-wise anti-Christianity of the false prophet 
or beast" (VI. 20, 21; Rev. XIII. 12-15). I n 



118 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

Spiritism instructing demons arc sometimes intro- 
duced with flaming crosses in their hands, and its 
doctrine of the seven spheres closely approaches 
the Romish teaching about Purgatory. 

Indeed Spiritism is nothing but a revival of the 
influence which originated Paganism, while Ro- 
manism as a system though it contains much truth, 
is only Paganism under a veil, so that the ultimate 
amalgamation of the two presents no insuperable 
difficulty. 

It remains to mention that Spiritism meets the 
two-fold prediction, "forbidding to marry and 
commanding to abstain from meats." It propa- 
gates the first by the prohibition of marriage alto- 
gether, and also by "strange doctrines of elective 
affinities and spiritual alliances, which tend to an 
utter rejection of marriage as ordained by God." 

As to the second, it has always been recognized 
that abstinence from a flesh diet is indispensable to 
great mediumistic power, to say nothing of the 
doctrine of transmigration of souls which, from 
being a tenet of Theosophy, is now finding favor 
with the Spiritistic school. 

The limits of our pr.esent task forbid an en- 
largement on these points, but the interested reader 
is directed to Pember's Earth's Earliest Ages, 
Spiritualism, Part III., and to the Bibliography 
on the subject which he names. 



XI 
TEACHING OF THE GENERAL EPISTLES 



THERE is an added attraction to the study 
of our subject in the General Epistles be- 
cause they bring before us again, and from 
a different point of view, the mystery of the fallen 
angels dealt with earlier. 

This is done in I Peter III. 19, which speaks of 
Christ preaching to "the spirits in prison." At 
that point the inspired writer is using the ex- 
ample of Christ to encourage and comfort Christ- 
ian believers in their suffering for righteousness 1 
sake, saying: 

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the 
unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death as to 
the flesh, but quickened as to the spirit: 

"By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in 
prison." 

The words "spirits in prison" have sometimes 
been employed to teach the false doctrine of the 
"second chance" or a probation after death. In 
such cases the theory is advanced that Christ went 

119 



120 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

into the place of the wicked dead and preached 
the gospel to them giving them another opportunity 
to believe and be saved. 

If this were indeed the teaching of the passage, 
every true Christian preacher surely, would wish to 
proclaim it; but aside from the fact that it is taught 
in no other place in the Bible it certainly is not 
taught here. 

For example, the Greek word for "preached" 
in this instance is not that which the New Testa- 
ment commonly employs for the preaching of the 
Gospel, but a different word. It means to pro- 
claim after the manner of a herald. Grimm, the 
philologist, quoted by E. W. Bullinger, says that 
the word is always used with a suggestion of for- 
mality and an authority which must be listened to 
and obeyed. 

Moreover, if the subject of the proclamation is 
not clearly implied in the context of this word 
when it is used, then it must be distinctly stated if 
we are to know what it is. That is to say, if it is 
the proclamation of the Gospel that is intended, 
then the word "Gospel" must be used to insure 
that application, which is not the case here. 

In the next place, the word "spirits" does not 
apply to men. It is never so applied in the Bible 
when it stands alone and without any qualifying 
words, as it does here. A possible exception is 
Hebrews XII. 23, but there it is expressly said 
that "the spirits of just men" are meant, "the 



The General Epistles 121 

spirits of just men made perfect." As Bullinger 
says, "man was made, and up to the time of his 
death he continues to be, a 'living soul'." It is so 
also after death (Revelation VI. 9; XX. 4) and 
until the resurrection, when the word "spirit" is 
used as a brief term for man's spiritual body ( 1 
Cor. XV. 45). 

But the word "spirits" by itself and without any 
qualifying description is used always of supernat- 
ural beings, higher than man and lower than God. 
When there is any doubt as to the kind of spirit 
referred to, some defining word is employed like 
"unclean spirits," "evil spirits," etc. The defining 
words in this case are "spirits in prison," very evi- 
dently therefore, evil spirits. 

But do we inquire just what evil spirits are 
meant, the nature of their offence and the time 
of its perpetration? The information is furnished 
in the next verse, where we are told that they 
were those 

"Which aforetime were disobedient, when once the long- 
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark 
was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved 
by water." 

Very clearly this points back to the record in the 
sixth chapter of Genesis, and recalls what was con- 
sidered previously as to the fallen angels and the 
"sons of God" marrying the "daughters of 
men." 



122 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

There remains therefore only the inquiry as to 
what it was that Christ went thus and proclaimed 
to them in prison ? The answer to which is found 
in the particular purpose of this epistle, which is 
to comfort Christian believers under persecution 
for righteousness 1 sake, and to encourage and 
strengthen them in their witness bearing for Christ. 

In other words, Peter is here using the example 
of Christ in that connection. He suffered and died 
as to His flesh, but He was quickened as to His 
spirit, that is to say, He had a glorious resurrec- 
tion in a spiritual body. And He had more than 
this, He had a glorious triumph also ! God raised 
Him from the dead and gave Him glory (I. 21). 

So complete was this triumph, and so far-reach- 
ing the proclamation of it, that it extended even 
to the spirits in prison. He "spoiled principalities 
and powers and made a show of them openly" 
( Col. II. 15). "And He is now gone into heaven, 
and is on the right hand of God, angels and prin- 
cipalities and powers being made subject unto 
Him" (III. 22). 

II 

The thought is carried forward in Peter's second 1 
epistle at chapter two. 

False prophets are there being warned against 
"whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not 
and their damnation (or destruction) slumbereth 
not." 



The General Epistles 123 

"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them 
down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to 
be reserved unto judgment; 

"And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth 
person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon 
the world of the ungodly ; 

"And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes 
condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample 
unto those that after should live ungodly ; 

"And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation 
of the wicked. 

3|» *J* *J* 5f» 3f» «f» 

"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of tempta- 
tion, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be 
punished : 

"But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of un- 
cleanness, and despise government." 

What angels are here referred to? Are they 
those who fell with Satan anterior to the creation 
of man, or those spoken of, as we before showed, 
in Genesis VI, just prior to the flood? 

If the former, why is not Satan mentioned with 
them? As Kurtz remarks, "whenever else allusion 
is made to the tempter and those who were asso- 
ciated with him in his fall, mention is expressly 
made of Satan, and for the most part, of him 
only." 

That it should be otherwise in this place is the 
more remarkable because it is Peter's aim to show 
that God punishes not only men who sin, like these 
false prophets, but beings who are the most em- 
inent in rank. If therefore he had in mind a 
reference to the angels who fell at the first with 



124 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

Satan, would he not have named the latter, the 
chief est and the leader of the apostates? 

But to quote Fleming once more, a still stronger 
argument that the angels before the flood are 
meant, is found in the fact that they have been 
"cast down to hell (Tartarus) and delivered into 
chains of darkness to be reserved unto judg- 
ment." 

This is not the state of Satan and his angels 
since the fall, for they are still permitted to move 
through the world, and to tempt and overcome 
those men who are not arrayed in the armor of 
God (Job I. 7; Eph. V. 12; 1 Pet. V. 8). More- 
over, as if to preclude all doubt upon the subject, 
it is declared in Rev. XX. that Satan shall here- 
after be chained, evidently therefore, he is not 
chained now. 

The argument might be pressed further; for 
if the angels who sinned before the flood are not 
meant, why the allusion to the flood and the sal- 
vation of Noah in the next verse, the same as in 
1 Pet. III. 19? 

Nor should it escape the reader that there is 
significance in the reference to Sodom and Gom- 
orrah in verse 6, and "chiefly them that walk after 
the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise 
government," in verse 10. The correspondence 
between these illustrations or examples and the 
conduct of the angels before the flood is too strik- 
ing to be overlooked. 



The General Epistles 125 

in 

The subject is continued in Jude verses 4-8, 
which closely resemble those just quoted from 
Peter, so closely indeed as to preclude "all idea of 
entire independence. " Some commentators sup- 
pose that Jude wrote the earlier of the two, and 
that Peter copied from him, omitting or adding 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as suited his 
purpose. 

However this may be, it is evident that both 
writers refer to the same apostasy of angels, and 
that it is the one identified as taking place just be- 
fore the flood. 

To the arguments above stated in proof of this, 
might be added one founded on the use by New 
Testament writers of the term "angels," which 
word, when used by itself, is never employed to de- 
note the spirits who fell at the beginning with 
Satan. These are spoken of as "demons," just as 
their head is spoken of as "the devil" or "Satan". 

Kurtz, who uses this argument, admits that 
there are some places which seem to contradict it, 
but their critical examination proves otherwise. 
It is his conclusion that "as the apostles have em- 
ployed the naked term, neither they themselves in- 
tended, nor would their first readers have been 
likely to perceive, an allusion to the fall of Satan 
and his angels." 

A close exegesis of Jude confirms this opinion. 



126 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

His design was to guard believers against the cor- 
rupt principles and the licentious practices of cer- 
tain men whom he describes as u turning the grace 
of God into lasciviousness," and, as one of the old 
divines expresses it, "his whole discourse is point- 
edly and especially directed against that particular 
sin." 

He therefore reminds them of the earlier in- 
stances in which that sin had brought down divine 
judgment. In the case of Israel for example, the 
angels, inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and 
those of the cities round about them. "In like 
manner, " or "in like manner to these'' had they 
given "themselves over to fornication going after 
strange flesh. " 

The phrase "in like manner," or "in like manner 
to these" does not refer to the ungodly men nor 
to Sodom and Gomorrah, as some have supposed, 
but to the angels, for w r hich we have the strong 
authority of Dean Alford, who says the manner of 
the sin of these cities was similar, "because the 
angels committed fornication w r ith another race 
than themselves, thus also going after strange 
flesh." He names several other Greek scholars 
and Bible exegetes as holding the same view. 



IV 



We conclude this chapter with a reference to 
I John IV. 1-3 : 



The General Epistles 127 

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether 
they are of God : because many false prophets are gone out 
into the world. 

"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God : Every spirit that con- 
f esseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God : 

"And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is 
come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of 
antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and 
even now already is it in the world." 

It may be doubted whether the word "spirits" 
in verse i has the objective application we have 
heretofore given to it. That is, we are not sure 
that John is now speaking of evil spirits, or de- 
mons, with an independent existence from the ex- 
perience or thought of the prophets, but rather of 
the mental state, or the nature of the prophets 
themselves. Or to express it in another way, it is 
not a "familiar spirit" who controls the "medium" 
that is here in mind, but the medium's own spirit. 

And yet there is a close relation between the 
two, and what the inspired apostle has to teach us 
about the spirits of the "false prophets" is to the 
point. 

In Neander's expository lectures on this book, 
he observes that the point of transition at chapter 
four lies in what John had just said about the in- 
fluence of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christian 
believers, an influence which is the pledge of con- 
tinued fellowship with Christ. In John's day much 
was falsely claimed to be from the Holy Spirit, just 
as is the case today in the teaching of Spiritism, 



128 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

and hence the apostle directs attention to the dif- 
ference between His operations and the deceptive 
imitation of them. 

Every spirit was not to be believed, but the 
spirits were to be tried as to whether they were 
of God. And the touchstone of the matter, the 
criterion by which they were to be tried was the 
Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Did these false spirits confess Him, i.e., did 
they openly acknowledge and proclaim Him? Did 
they confess Him as Jesus, the Christ? Not a 
Christ, not one out of many, but the promised one 
and the only one ? Did they confess Him as hav- 
ing come in the flesh? Was He to them "the 
Eternal Logos in His humanization? The Divine 
Life-fountain letting itself down into human na- 
ture and revealing itself in visible human form — 
the Divine and the human in harmonious union?" 

Note particularly the words, "is come" in verse 
20. It is the Greek perfect, which implies not a 
mere past historical fact, as would be the case 
if another tense were used, but a present continu- 
ance of the fact and its blessed effects. 

"Is come in the flesh" or "clothed with flesh." 
Christ's was not a mere seeming humanity, as some 
have erroneously taught, but a real humanity. And 
it is necessary to believe and confess this, in order 
to express the truth of the atonement for sin. 
Only by assuming our flesh could Christ die "the 
just for the unjust," to bring us to God. "To deny 



The General Epistles 129 

the reality of His flesh is to deny His love, and so 
cast away the root which produces all true love on 
the believer's part n (see verses 9-1 1 of this same 
chapter). 

Now every spirit that does not so confess Jesus 
Christ is not of God, or as some authorities ren- 
der verse 3, every spirit that "annulleth" Jesus 
Christ is not of God. And that is just what Spirit- 
ism does. It "annulleth" Jesus Christ, the Jesus 
Christ of the Bible is Whom we mean. Spiritism 
may speak of Jesus and of Christ, but it is not 
"Him of whom Moses in the law, and the pro- 
phets, did write" (John I. 45). 

In proof of this, we referred in our first chap- 
ter to Basil King's book, and now we would add 
something from Sir A. Conan Doyle's, "The New 
Revelation" : 

"Let us look at the light we get from the spirit guides on 
this question of Christianity," he says. "Opinion is not abso- 
lutely uniform yonder any more than it is here, but reading a 
number of messages upon this subject, they amount to this: 

"That there are many higher spirits with our departed. 
They vary in degree. Call them 'angels', and you are in touch 
with the old religious thought. 

"High above all these is the greatest spirit of whom they 
have cognizance — not God, since God is so infinite that He is 
not within their ken — but one who is nearer God and to that 
extent represents God. This is the Christ-spirit. 

"His special care is the earth. He came down upon it at 
a time of great earthly depravity in order to give people the 
lesson of an ideal life. Then he returned to his own high 
station, having left an example which is still occasionally 
followed. 



130 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

'That is the story of Christ as the spirits have described 
it. There is nothing here of Atonement or Redemption. But 
there is a perfectly feasible and reasonable scheme, which I 
for one could readily believe." (Pp. 74, 75). 

Observe that according to this teaching Christ 
is not God, but only represents Him as being 
nearer to Him than other spirits — the very error 
with which Paul deals in his epistle to the Colos- 
sians. 

Observe also that Christ came down to the 
earth not as a sacrifice for sin, in Spiritism there 
is "nothing of atonement or redemption," but 
simply as an example "to give people the lesson 
of an ideal life." 

"People can see no justice in a vicarious sacri- 
fice, nor in a God Who could be placated by such 
means," says Sir Arthur. "Never was there any 
evidence for a fall. But if there were no fall, then 
what became of the atonement, of redemption 
from original sin, and of a large part of the Chris- 
tian mystical philosophy? 

"It is no uncommon thing to die for an idea," 
he goes on to say. "Men die continually for their 
convictions. Therefore the death of Christ, beauti- 
ful as it is in the Gospel narrative, has assumed 
an undue importance." 

As to the life of Christ, Sir Arthur tells us it 
was lived simply in order to afford men an ideal. 
"Christ," he says, was "full of easy tolerance for 
others." He occasionally lost His temper indeed, 



The General Epistles 131 

but He was ever ready to sweep aside texts and 
forms and "get at the spirit of religion" (p. 72). 
What blasphemy ! 

To the same purport, the transfiguration of 
Christ, according to this same apostle of Spiritism, 
was a "story of the materialization of the two 
prophets upon the mountain"; and the three taber- 
nacles suggested by Peter were three "cabinets," 
in other words, "the ideal way of condensing 
power and producing materializations" ! 

Such is the attitude of the New Revelation 
towards Christ, and the apostle John says that 
"this is the spirit of Anti-Christ." The Anti- 
Christ when he comes will be a person in human 
flesh, a despot, political, ecclesiastical or both, who 
will arise in Christendom, and whom men will 
worship instead of God. But his spirit, the teach- 
ing that prepares the way for his full development, 
is already in the world, and Spiritism is an integral 
part of it. 

It is comforting indeed to hear John say further, 
addressing true believers in the Lord: 

"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: 
because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the 
world. 

"They are of the world : therefore speak they of the world, 
and the world heareth them. 

"We are of God : he that knoweth God heareth us ; he that 
is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of 
truth, and the spirit of error." 



132 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

They that are of God are those who have con- 
fessed Jesus Christ in the manner John has indi- 
cated; and they have overcome the false prophets, 
or the lying spirits, in that they have not been 
brought into spiritual bondage by them. These 
spirits are of the world, in harmony with its feel- 
ings and opinions, therefore "the world heareth 
them," runs after them, and fills the air with its 
din. 

But they that are of God heareth us; and here- 
by, i.e., by their confessing or not confessing 
Jesus Christ, know we the Spirit that comes from 
God and teaches truth, and the spirit that comes 
from Satan and is error. 



XII 
TEACHING OF THE APOCALYPSE 



IN another place the present writer has men- 
tioned twenty-five reasons why u the man of 
God," the true believer on Jesus Christ, should 
read and study the Apocalypse, or the book of 
Revelation, with avidity. 

Among the reasons are these : ( i) , It describes 
the judgments that shall be visited upon the earth 
after the Church is translated; (2) it witnesses to 
the deliverance of certain classes of people out 
of those judgments; (3) it mentions particular 
wonders which the Church and the world shall be- 
hold in those days; (4) it traces the rise and de- 
velopment of the anti-christ; (5) it predicts and 
describes the battle of Armageddon; (6) it dem- 
onstrates the overthrow of the present world sys- 
tems; (7) it portrays the Second Coming of 
Christ; (8) it reveals Satan's doom; (9) it gives 
details of the last judgment; (10) it opens the 
vista of the eternal age. 

133 



134 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

The reader needs to make a distinction between 
the end of the world and the end of the age. The 
end of the world, which synchronizes with the last 
judgment, is doubtless a long ways off. If the 
writer's conception of the teaching of the prophets 
is correct, a whole Millennium of peace and bless- 
ing on the earth shall intervene before it takes 
place. 

On the other hand, the end of the present age 
or dispensation may be very near. The Scofield 
Reference Bible defines age or "dispensation" as u a 
period of time during which man is tested in re- 
spect to obedience to some specific revelation of 
the will of God," and states that seven such dis- 
pensations are distinguished in Scripture. 

The present age or dispensation closes with the 
Second Coming of Christ. (See the author's 
Prophecy and the Lord's Return.) This event, 
as we understand it, takes place in two stages, or 
which may be represented by two scenes of a single 
act. In the first, our Lord comes for His Church, 
which is His mystical body (Ephesians I. 22, 23), 
and which is translated to meet Him in the air 
( 1 Thess. IV. 16-18). In the second, He descends 
out of the air into the earth, or to quote the pre- 
cise words of Scripture, "He shall be revealed 
from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming 
fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, 
and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ" (2 Thess. I. 7, 8). 



Teaching of the Apocalypse 135 

The culmination of wickedness at the end of this 
age, it is predicted, will be marked by an outburst 
of demonism or spiritism just as at the culmination 
of the ante-diluvian age. To such predictions the 
attention of the reader has been called from time 
to time and they approach a climax as we enter 
on the study of the Apocalypse. 

Prior to entering on that study however, it is 
important to be persuaded that, as Pember puts 
it, the great aim ofSatan in all the ages has not 
been the spread of absolute skepticism, but the 
subjugation of the world to demoniacal power. 
His empire, in other # words, can not be completely 
organized till men are as obedient to demons as 
the latter are to the rebel principalities and pow- 
ers, and these last again to their great prince. 
"And so the denizens of darkness are not merely 
stirring up an aimless revolt against God; but 
would fain annex the whole of our world to their 
orderly dominions." 

Philip Mauro, in "The World and Its God," 
puts it in another way, when he says that Satan's 
plan is not the destruction or injury of the race, 
but its well-being rather, that is, its well-being to 
be achieved by the best possible results attainable 
apart from God. He is doing his best, in other 
words, not to drag men down, but to lift them up, 
but according to his own standards and ideals, and 
for the advancement of his own interests as op- 
posed to God. 



136 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

Such being true, it may appear strange to read 
of some things for which evil spirits are scheduled 
in the history of mankind at the close of this age, 
and in which Satan himself is to be engaged when 
he learns that his time is short. 

But the reason is that his time is short, and be- 
cause he is tasting the bitterness of defeat. It is 
because also of his malignity and his lack of scruple 
in subjugating the victims of his will. Nor are 
we to forget the plan and purpose of our right- 
eous God, in using, or permitting the use, of these 
wicked beings in retribution upon those who be- 
ing reprobate, have "trodden under foot the Son 
of God and done despite unto the Spirit of grace" 
(Heb. X. 29). 



II 



Approaching the book of Revelation, we have 
in the ninth chapter, beginning at the 13th verse, 
an account of the sounding of the sixth trumpet 
when the four angels are loosed "which are bound 
at the great river Euphrates." These angels had 
been "prepared for the hour, and day, and month 
and year that they should kill the third part of 
man," which seems to mean that they had been re- 
served for a particularly appointed moment. 

In other words, following Bullinger in The 
Apocalypse, or The Day of the Lord, these 
periods do not imply the duration of the judg- 



Teaching of the Apocalypse 137 

ments; but point to the time when they shall take 
place. There is but one article and one prepo- 
sition between the four times named, which unites 
them, whereas had they been repeated it would 
have separated them and made a period of thir- 
teen months. The very hour, of the very day, of 
the very month, of the very year is thus appointed 
by the Judge. 

Bullinger also thinks that there can be no doubt 
that these angels are of those described by Peter 
and Jude as "delivered into chains of darkness, 
to be reserved unto (or for) judgment." And 
the judgment for which they have been reserved 
he regards as that which takes place at the end 
of this age. Not only are they themselves to be 
judged, but they are to be the executors of God's 
judgments upon wicked and unbelieving men. 
These are the "spirits in prison," he believes, to 
whom the Saviour proclaimed His triumph after 
the resurrection (i Peter III. 19). 

Why they were bound at the river Euphrates 
we do not know, except that there may be some 
connection between the abyss whence they arise 
and wicked old Babylon, the mother of harlots 
and abominations of the earth (Rev. XVII. 5). 
Satan began his earlier activities in the earth in 
that region, and there may be a reason for bring- 
ing them to a climax in the same locality. (Com- 
pare Jeremiah XLVL 4-10 R.V.) 

Suddenly there appear upon the scene armies of 



138 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

horsemen, 200,000,000, from which it may be in- 
ferred that they are not human beings but spirits, 
for spirits are legion. In Isaiah XXXI. we have 
a warning that the horses of Egypt in which Is- 
rael would trust were "flesh and not spirit," which 
leads to the supposition that there may be horses 
that are spirit and not flesh. More than this con- 
cerning them one is unable to say, but "when God 
thus describes them nothing ought to be easier than 
to believe what He says." 

The Revelation goes on to say that by these 
three plagues, "fire, smoke and brimstone" was 
the third part of men killed, but that the rest of 
the men who were not killed, "repented not of 
the works of their hands, that they should not 
worship demons, nor idols * * * which can 
neither see, nor hear nor walk. 

"Neither repented they of their murders, nor 
of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor 
of their thefts." 

It is the final and full development of what is 
called Spiritism which is here referred to, con- 
tinues Bullinger, and which calls for the plague 
of the Sixth Trumpet. "Sorceries of which men 
did not repent," are the dealings of men with spirit 
agencies. No wonder that God has so solemnly 
warned us against them, and no wonder that such 
awful judgments are to be visited upon them. 

It is anticipating somewhat, but it may be well 
to mention at this point that sorcerers shall have 



Teaching of the Apocalypse 139 

their part in the lake that burneth with fire and 
brimstone, and they shall never walk in the streets 
of the golden city. (Rev. XXL 8 ; XXIL 15.) 



in 



The twelfth chapter of Revelation furnishes 
our next illustration, which tells us at verse 7 that 
"there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels 
fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought 
and his angels/' 

There is more than one place spoken of as 
heaven in Scripture. Perhaps as on earth there 
are many countries and states, so, some think, 
heaven may have its different spheres; and in 
one of these mighty spiritual forces are here re- 
vealed as set in battle array. 

Michael, described elsewhere as "one of the 
chief princes" and "the archangel," is also said 
to be the prince which standeth for the Jewish 
people, Israel among the nations (Dan. X. 13, 21 ; 
XII. 1; Jude 9). In this action he takes the in- 
itiative against the dragon, another name for 
Satan, whose dominion covers all the powers and 
governments of the world. 

The time has now come in the Divine counsels 
for the great historical event of the ages, and 
Satan, who hitherto has had some kind of access 
to the heavens (Job I. and II. ), is about to be 
cast out, and u the kingdoms of the w r orld become 



140 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ, and 
He shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation XL 

15)- 

But when Satan is thus cast down to the earth, 

his angels are cast down with him, and they soon 
cause men to feel the meaning of the awful utter- 
ance that follows in the prophetic warning, "Woe 
to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea for 
the devil is come down unto you, having great 
wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short 
time." 

Then not merely the demons, but the great an- 
gels of darkness, the principalities, the powers, 
and the spiritual rulers of the world maddened by 
the thought that they have lost their fair realms 
forever, and that the Lord is at hand to complete 
their destruction, will in their rage break through 
every restraint, and recklessly gratify their own 
evil desires (Earth's Earliest Ages, p. 391). 



IV 



A single illustration further will suffice, and we 
find it in the prediction of the battle of Armaged- 
don in chapter XVI. beginning at verse 12. 

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon 
the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof 
was dried up, that the way of the kings of the 
cast might be prepared." 

This gathering of the kings of the east is in 



Teaching of the Apocalypse 141 

order to the great battle in which the heavenly 
and the Satanic and earthly forces are about to be 
engaged, an infernal crusade against the Lord and 
His Anointed (Psalm II). At the sounding of 
the sixth trumpet we saw a vast supernatural army 
let loose to slay a third part of men; but here a 
vast human army is gathered together, the whole 
of which, as the context shows, will be destroyed 
by God. 

East and West are to be reckoned from the 
standpoint of the 'prophecy and not that of the 
reader, which standpoint is Palestine and Jeru- 
salem. 

"And I saw," says the revelator, "three unclean 
spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the 
dragon (Satan), and out of the mouth of the 
beast (Antichrist), and out of the mouth of the 
false prophet." ("For the further description and 
identity of the false prophet, see chapter XIII. 
11-18.) 

"For they are the spirits of demons, working 
miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the 
earth and of the whole world, to gather them to 
the battle of that great day of God Almighty." 
(Compare 1 Kings XXII. 19-38; Joel III. 9-17.) 

"And they gather them together to a place in 
the Hebrew tongue Armageddon (or Har-Ma- 
gadon)." The name means a Mount of Megiddo, 
an eminence which rises up out of the plain Es- 
draelon in northern Palestine, a natural battlefield, 



142 Spiritism and the Fallen Angels 

where many a contest was fought in the history of 
Israel; a chosen place of encampment in every con- 
test, from Nebuchadnezzar to the recent march of 
Allenby into Syria. Slaughter and lamentation 
are associated with Megiddo (Zachariah XII. 
n). In Isaiah X. 28, which describes the in- 
vasion of Palestine by the Antichrist, the Septua- 
gint version reads "Megiddo." 

Having gathered the hosts of the enemy thither, 
the sixth vial ends, but the description of the events 
to take place there will be found in connection 
with the pouring out of the 7th vial as found in 
Chapter XIX. 11-18. 

We conclude with the interjectional clause in 
this vision, which comes in as a parenthesis. It 
is the voice of Christ Himself, who, while the 
demon spirits are gathering the kings and their 
armies for the last great crisis of the age, exclaims: 

"Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, 
and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see 
his shame." 

The words are addressed not to the Church, 
not to the true believers of this age, for, if our 
interpretation of prophecy be correct, they will 
ere this have been caught up to meet the Lord in 
the air. They are addressed to those then dwell- 
ing on the earth and passing through its tribula- 
tion, but who have not worhsipped the beast 
(Anti-christ) nor his image, and who have not 
received his mark in the foreheads. 



Teaching of the Apocalypse 143 

Christ does not come upon His ChurcH as a 
thief. ( i Thess. V. 4; compare also Matt XXIV. 
38-44; Luke XII. 35-40). To His Church He 
comes as a welcome and expected guest ( 1 Cor. I. 
7; Col. IV. 4; 1 Thess. I. 9, 10; 2 Tim. IV. 8; 
Titus II. 13; Jas. V. 8; 1 Pet. V. 4; 1 Jno. III. 
2, 3; Rev. XXII. 20). 

"And now, little children, abide in Him; that, 
when He shall appear we may have confidence, 
and not be ashamed before Him at His coming" 
(1 John II. 28). 



INDEX 



"Abolishing of Death" 10. 
Acts, Book of, 90-101. 
Alford, Dean, 126. 
Angels, good, 39-41 ; evil, 41- 



Colossians, Epistle to, 109-112. 
Conybeare and Howson, 90. 
Cook, Miss, 20. 
Corinthians, Epistle to, 102- 
106. 
45; called sons of God, 47- Crookes, Sir William, 19, 20, 
52 ; corporeal form, 55 ; 37. 
communication with men, 
56; objections to interpret- D 

ing Genesis VI of, 57-65 ; Daughters of men, 46-52. 
104, 105 ; fallen, called de- Dead, return of the, 80-86. 
mons in New Testament, Delphic oracle, 17, 18, 97. 

Demonism, in Bible times, 34, 
35, 42, 43 ; in recent times, 
35, 36; Dr. F. B. Meyer on, 
44, 45. 
Deuteronomy XVIIL, 71-79. 
Doyle, Sir A. Conan, 9, 22, 
129, 130. 



125. 
Apocalypse, 133-143. 
Armageddon, 36, 140, 141, 
Auberlen, 114. 
Augustine, 61. 
Automatic writing, 68, 69. 



B 

Baal-worship, 86. 
Bohme, Jacob, 16. 
Books on Spiritism, inade- 
quacy of, 9-13. 
"Bowman, The," 22. 
Brainerd, David, 18. 



Eadie, Dr., 107. 

"Earth's Earliest Ages," 61, 

83, 118, 140. 
Elymas the sorcerer, 95-97. 

Bulhnger, Dr. ] , W., 120, 136, Endor> witch * of> 8] _ 86 

Ephesians, Epistle to, 107, 109. 



137, 138. 



Campbell, Theodore, 61. 
Canaanites, abominations of 

the, 66-79. 
"Celestial Prophets," 18. i 
Christ, the Master Medium, 

26, 92. 
Christian Science, 13-15. 



Ephesus, 100, 101. 



"Fallen Angels and the 
Heroes of Mythology/' 51, 
54, 61. 
Familiar spirit, 70, 80. 
Faussett, Canon, 117. 
"Christian Work, The," 14, 22. Fleming, Rev. John, 51, 53, 54, 
Cicero, 18. 56, 58, 60, 104, 124. 

Clagett, Rev. William H., 84- Fox family, 19. 
85. Fraud, 20, 21, 36. 

144 



Index 



145 



Galatians, Epistle to, 106, 

107. 
General Epistles, 119-132. 
Genesis VI, 46, 54, 57, 66, 104, 

121 123. 
Gill, Dr. John, 52. 
Gnosticism, 17. 
Gordon, Dr. A. J., 14, 15. 
Guyon, Madame, 16. 



Homer, 17. 



H 



James, Professor William, 

37. 
Joan of Arc, 23, 25. 

K 
King, Basil, 9, 10, 129. 
"King, Katie," 20. 
Kitto, 54. 

Kurtz, Dr. John Henry, 53, 
56, 58, 64, 65, 104, 123, 125. 



Lazarus, 81. 

Lightfoot, Bishop, 106. 

Lodge, Sir Oliver, 21, 22, 37. 

Loves of the gods, 57. 

Luther, 18. 

Lying wonders, 113. 

M 

Maitland, 54, 104. 
Manasseh, 87. 

Materialization, 20, 21, 36, 86. 
Meyer, Dr. F. B., 44. 
Milton, 53, 64. 

"Modern Craze of Spiritual- 
ism/' 45. 
Mons, 22, 25. 
More, Dr. Henry, 61. 
Moses and Elijah, 81. 

N 
Naaman, 86. 
Nagelsbach, 64. 
Nain, son of widow of, 81. 



Neander, 127. 

Nephilim, 51, 57, 66, 67. 

Nevius, Dr., 35. 

Newton, Benjamin Wills, 97. 

Nicholson, Bishop, 110. 

O 
Ob or Ohv, 70. 



Park hurst, 70. 
Pember, 61, 68, 83, 117, 118, 
135. 

Personation, 80. 

Philippian damsel, 37, 97-99. 

"Physical Theory of Another 

Life," 59. 
Piper, Mrs., 20. 
Psychical Research, Society 

for, 9, 20. 
Pythoness, 37, 70, 97. 

R 
Ramsay, Sir William, 90, 

91, 94, 96. 
Revelation, 133-143. 



Samuel, 81-86. 

Satan, 27-38; names, 28; ori- 
gin, 28-30; nature and char- 
acter, 30, 31 ; present loca- 
tion and work, 31-33; spe- 
cial manifestations today, 
33-38; aim, 135. 

Schofield, Dr. A. T, 98. 

Shakers, 18. 

Simon Magus, 93-95. 

Society for Psychical Re- 
search, 9, 20. 

Sons of God, 46-55 ; Jewish 
interpretation, 49-52 ; Church 
interpretation, 52-55 ; mar- 
rying the daughters of men, 
57-65, 122. 

Spiritism, books on, 9-13 ; bet- 
ter term than spiritualism, 
16, 17 ; from apostolic times 



146 



Index 



to Fox sisters, 17-19; scien- 
tific epoch of, 19-21 ; cur- 
rent revival of, 21-24 ; warn- 
ing against, 24-26 ; Satan the 
source of, 27, 36-38; certain 
phenomena genuine, 36; be- 
fore the Flood, 46-56; 
among the Canaanites, 66- 
75 ; in Israel and Judah, 
80-89; in apostolic times, 
90-101 ; in the Pauline epis- 
tles, 102-118; prohibition of 
marriage, 118; in the Gen- 
eral Epistles, 119-132; in 
the Apocalypse, 133-143. 

Spirit marriages, 62, 63. 

Spirit rapping, 18, 19. 

Spirits in prison, 119-122. 

Stanley, Dean, 104 

Starke, 106. 

Strabo, 17. 

"Sunday School Times," 10, 
33. 

Swedenborg, 18, 25. 



Tarkington, Booth, 9. 
Taylor, Isaac, 59. 
Theodoret, 17. 
Theosophy, 35, 118. 
Thessalonians, Epistle to, 112- 

114. 
Timothy, Epistles to, 114-118. 
Tongues, speaking with, 35. 
Torrey, Dr. R. A., 29. 

Transfiguration, 80. 

V 
"Vital Choice: Endor or 
Calvary/' 68. 

W 

Wallace, Alfred Russell, 

37. 
War and spiritism, 14, 21, 22. 
Wesley family, 18. 
Wilson, Bishop, 11. 
Witch of Endor, 37. 
Writing mediums, 68, 69. 



INDEX OF TEXTS 



(The figures in parentheses refer to pages) 



Ezekiel 1 :15, 22, 25, 26 (30) ; 
28:11-18 (29, 30). 



Genesis 1:1 (29) ; 1 :26 (104) ; 
2:18, 23 (104); 3:1-6 (32); 
3:16 (104); 4:26 (52, 55); 
6:1-4 (46, 54, 57, 104, 123); 
6:4 (66); 18:8 (39); 19:3 
(39); 41:8 (68). 

Exodus 19:8 (75); 22:18 J oel 3 :9 " 17 ( 141 > • 
(69); 24:10, 17 (30); 37:9 Zechariah 



Daniel 7:10 (40) ; 7:25 (116); 
8:23 (116); 10:13 (40, 139) 
10:21 (139); 12:1 (139). 



(30). 

Leviticus 20:27 (37, 69). 
Numbers 13:33 (67). 
Deuteronomy 5 :27 (76) ; 18 

(17); 18:9-11 (71); 18:12- 

14 (74); 18:15-19 (76); 

32:17 (42). 
Judges 23 (42,43). 
I Samuel 16:14 (43); 28 (83). 

I Kings 17-19 (86) ; 22 (86) ; 
22:19-38 (141); 22:22 (42). 

II Kings 5 (86) ; 19 :35 (40) ; 

21 (87). 

I Chronicles 21:1 (32, 112). 

II Chronicles 22:9, 10 (88); 
23:12, 13 (87). 

Job 1, 2 (27, 139); 1:6, 7 
(32); 1:7 (117, 124); 1:10- 
12 (31); 2:2 (117); 2:7 
(33). 

Psalm 2 (141); 8:4, 5 (39); 
68:17 (40); 90:10-12 (40); 
103:20 (40). 

Isaiah 8:19, 20 (22); 10:28 
(142); 14:12-14 (29); 19- 

22 (24); 31 (138); 50 
(HI). 

Jeremiah 2:19 (75); 46:4-10 
(137). 



3 (28) : 
(142); 13:2 (89). 

Matthew 4 (28, 32, 
5:37 (31); " 
31 (35) ; 
8 :31 (44) : 



12:11 



147 



ill); 

7:22 (42) ; 8:28- 
8:29 (43, 44); 
10:1 (42); 12:22 
(42); 12:24-26 (42); 12:26 
27 (42); 12:43 (117); 13:19 
(32); 16:21 (111); 17:15- 
18 (42); 18:10 (40); 22:30 
(57, 63); 24:11-24 (116); 
24:24 (28, 31, 38); 24:36 
(40); 24:38-44 (143); 25:41 
(41, 42, 43); 26:53 (40); 
28:52, 53 (81). 

Mark 1:25, 34 (99); 5:7 
(44); 5:13 (42); 9:43-48 
(97). 

Luke 1:19 (40); 7:21 (42); 
8:12 (31); 8:30 (42); 8:31 
(43); 9:1 (101); 9:30, 31 
(80); 10:18 (29); 11:14-18 
(31); 12:35-40 (143); 13:16 
(32,33,42); 16 (25); 20:36 
(39). 

John 1:17 (72); 1:45 (129); 

8:44 (31,42); 12:27 (111) ; 

12:31 (31); 13:27 (28, 32). 
Acts 3:19-26 (77); 5:3 (28); 

8 (95); 8:5-24 (93); 10:38 

(32, 33); 16 (97); 16:16 



148 



Index of Texts 



(42); 17 (112); 17:22 (34); 
19:11 (100); 19:20 (101); 
26:18 (31). 
Romans 8:26 (109). 

I Corinthians 1:7 (143); 2:15 
(99); 7:37 (105); 10:20-22 
(102) ; 11:9, 10 (103); 12- 

14 (105); 12:4-6 (106); 
12:7-11 (106); 12:12-31 
(106); 13:1-13 (106); 14:1- 
25 (106); 14:26-35 (106); 
15:45 (122). 

II Corinthians 2:11 (31); 4:4 
(31,32); 11:14 (31); 11:14, 

15 (32); 12:7 (32). 
Galatians 4:20, 21 (106); 

5:20, 21 (38). 
Ephesians 1 :21 (40) ; 1 :22, 

23 (134); 2:2 (29, 31) ; 

3:9, 10 (40); 4:27 (32, 33); 

5:12 (124); 6:10-12 (107); 

6:11, 12 (31, 32, 41); 6:12 

(42, 110). 
Philippians 4 :6, 7 (78). 
Colossians 1:16 (41); 2:13-15 

(110); 2:15 (122); 3:22 

(122); 4:4 (143). 

I Thessalonians 1 :9, 10 (143) ; 
2:18 (28, 112); 4:16-18 
(134); 4:17 (40); 5:4 
(143). 

II Thessalonians 1 :7 (40) ; 
1:7, 8 (134); 2 (115); 2:3 
(116); 2:5, 6 (105); 2:8 
(30); 2:8-10 (28); 2:9 
(31); 2:9, 10 (113). 

I Timothy 3 :6 (30) ; 3 :6, 7 
(42); 3:7 (32); 3:16-4:3 
(115); 4:1 (42); 6:20, 21 
(117). 



II Timothy 2:26 (44); 4:8 

(143). 
Titus 2:13 (143). 
Hebrews 1:7, 8 (39); 2:14 

(32); 10:29 (136); 12:19 

(76); 12:23 (121). 
James 1:14 (33); 2:19 (94); 

4:7 (31, 33); 5:8 (143). 

I Peter 1:10, 11 (78); 1:12 
(56); 2:12 (92); 3:6 y 10, 

19 (124); 3:19 (119, 137); 
3:20 (121); 5:4 (143); 5:8 
(28, 29, 32, 33, 124). 

II Peter 2:4 (41, 42, 104); 
2:4-7, 9, 10 (123); 2:10-12 
(42). 

I John 2:28 (143); 3:2, 3 
(143); 3:8 (31); 4:1-3 
(126); 4:3 (129); 4:4-6 
(131); 4:9-11 (129); 5:19 
(31). 

Jude (4-8 (125); 6 (104); 
6, 7 (42); 8, 9 (31); 9 
(139). 

Revelation 3:9 (32); 5:11 
(40); 6:9 (121); 9:1-11 
(43); 9:13 (136); 9:21 
(38); 11:15 (140); 12:7 
(139); 12:7-9 (43); 12:9 
(27, 32, 41); 12:9, 10 (30); 
13:1, 2 (28); 13:9, 10 (32); 
13:11-15 (59); 13:11-18 
(141); 13:12-15 (117); 
16:12 (140); 16:13, 14 (43, 
59, 141) ; 16:14 (36, 38); 
16:15 (142); 16:16 (141); 
17:5 (137); 18:23 (38); 
19:11-18 (142); 19:20 (30); 

20 (124); 20:2 (27); 20:4 
(121); 21:8 (38); 21:10-21 
(29); 22:20 (143). 






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